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French Beans

A dish of French beans cooked with salt, broth, cream, butter, flour, pepper, onion, vinegar, chives, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and chive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 180 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut off the ends and stalks of the French beans and divide them in half or shred them.

  2. Soak the beans in salt water.

Cook

  1. When the saucepan boils, add the beans with some salt.

  2. Once cooked, serve immediately to preserve the green color.

  3. For a creamy version, drain the beans when half done, add 2 tablespoons of strained broth, cream, butter, and flour, and finish cooking.

  4. For scarlet runners, boil for 20 minutes or until tender.

  5. Optionally, place them in a dripping pan under roasting meat with pepper and salt.

  6. To prepare beans in gravy, mince and stew them in beef gravy.

  7. For dwarf scarlet runners, simmer in soft water until tender, adding finely chopped onion and a piece of butter rolled in flour.

  8. Stir in hot water and simmer for a few minutes, then add salt, a teaspoon of vinegar, minced chives or shallot, and parsley for color.

  9. Serve the beans very hot, either in a covered dish or under roast mutton.

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 + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Onion + chivetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,907 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Flour + chivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,168 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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, so cooking time and cut size shape the final texture.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the creamy version.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour helps thicken the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the butter and broth into a smooth sauce that coats the beans.
Broth
Supplies savory flavor and liquid for the creamy sauce or gravy.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the flavor of the cooked beans.

The step that matters

Serve immediately once cooked. Green vegetables keep their bright color only briefly after cooking, and continued heat turns chlorophyll drab and softens the texture.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour, pepper, onion, vinegar, chive):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, pepper, onion, vinegar, chive. 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.

More french beans recipes

Boiled 29Pickled 12Preserved 9Plain 4Stewed 4Creamed 3 See all 54 →

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