Name: French Beans
Ingredients: fresh green beans; coarse sea salt; butter; black pepper

Why it works: Green beans and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 369 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

fresh green beans
coarse sea salt
butter
black pepper

Directions

Remove the strings from the beans and cut them into thin slices.
Boil the beans in salted water until tender.
Drain the beans well and return them to the saucepan.
Add a little butter, pepper, and salt to the beans.
Shake over heat for a minute or two, then serve in a hot dish.

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.

Green beans + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together369 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Green beans + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together154 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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