Name: String Beans
Ingredients: Tender string beans; Water; New potatoes; Sweet cream; Flour

Why it works: Beans and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Select fresh, tender string beans and string them carefully.
Snap the beans into short pieces and wash them well.
Drop the beans into boiling water and stew until very tender, about 1.5 to 2 hours.
Add new potatoes 30 minutes before finishing to enhance flavor.
Stir in a little sweet cream thickened with flour just before removing from heat.
Turn the beans into an open tureen and let them cool slightly before serving.

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.

Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,355 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Potato + creamtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,481 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).
Cream + flourtop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together30,481 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).