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Chickens with French Beans

Boiled chicken served with boiled French beans in lemon butter sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and chicken are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,432 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Chickens with French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut the French beans into squares.

  2. Boil the beans in spring water with salt for 3-5 minutes to keep them green.

  3. Drain the beans immediately in a sieve.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil the chickens until cooked and place them on a serving dish.

  2. Garnish the chickens with the French beans.

  3. Squeeze lemon juice into hot butter sauce and pour it over the chickens.

  4. Serve immediately.

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 + chickentop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,432 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,474 recipes

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

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Chicken + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Chicken + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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
Brief boiling keeps them bright green and tender-crisp, and they add a fresh vegetable contrast.
Chickens
Provide the main protein, and boiling cooks them until firm and fully done.
Hot butter sauce
Adds fat and richness that coats the chicken and gives it a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich butter sauce.

The step that matters

Draining the beans immediately after boiling. Beans left in hot water keep cooking and turn dull, soft, and olive-coloured. Boiling only 3-5 minutes and draining at once stops the cooking, preserving colour and a crisp bite.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Mangofits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, chicken, butter, sauce. 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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