Name: French Beans
Ingredients: 1 pound French beans; 2 teaspoons coarse sea salt; 2 tablespoons butter; Freshly ground pepper; 1 tablespoon all-purpose flour

Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Wash the French beans in cold water and drain them.
Remove the stringy parts from the sides and cut into narrow strips or diamond shapes.

Cook and serve

Place the beans in boiling salted water and cook until tender, then drain.
Mix the beans with melted butter, pepper, and sprinkle with flour.
Serve hot.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

French beans: Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender for a soft bite.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth coating that carries flavor across the beans.
All-purpose flour: Lightly thickens the butter coating so it clings to the beans.