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To Preserve Beans

A method for preserving beans by pickling them with salt, vinegar, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Preserve Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Gather beans when they are full size and pick them.

  2. Scald the beans for a few minutes, keeping their color.

  3. Drain and cool the beans.

Pack and brine

  1. Place the beans in a stone jar that holds 2 to 3 quarts, ensuring they are not closely packed.

  2. Add a handful of coarse sea salt to the water.

Finish the pickle

  1. The next day, discard the water and pour a stronger pickle over the beans using 2 parts water and 1 part vinegar, along with 2 to 3 handfuls of coarse sea salt.

  2. Pour melted butter over the beans.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Vinegar + buttertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the body of the dish, and scalding before pickling helps them keep their color.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that sours the pickle and helps preserve the beans.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out and seasons the pickle, helping preserve texture and flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and a fat coating over the pickled beans.

The step that matters

Scald the beans for a few minutes. Scalding softens the beans enough to pack and pickle while keeping their color. Too little leaves them raw and tough, while too long turns them soft and dull in color.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (vinegar, butter):

  1. Soybeanfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Peanutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, butter. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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