Name: To Dress Dried French Beans
Ingredients: 1 pound scarlet runner beans; 2 quarts water; 1 pint onions, peeled and sliced; ¼ pound fresh butter; 1 teaspoon black pepper; Coarse sea salt, to taste; A little gravy; 2 egg yolks, beaten; 1 tablespoon vinegar

Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Dress Dried French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

Boil the beans in 2 quarts of water for more than 2 hours.
Strain the water from the beans and mix them with the browned onions.

Make the dressing

In a saucepan, brown the sliced onions in the butter, stirring constantly.
Add black pepper, salt, and a little gravy, then let them stew for 10 minutes.
Stir in the beaten egg yolks and vinegar, then 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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,226 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Scarlet runner beans: Form the bulk of the dish and carry its texture once fully softened.
Onions: Brown in butter to add sweetness and savory depth to the dressing.
Butter: Carries the onions' flavor and adds richness and fat to the dish.
Egg yolks: Enrich and thicken the dressing as they are stirred in.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg.

The step that matters

Stir in the beaten egg yolks and vinegar, then serve hot.. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they meet too much heat, so they should be stirred in off the boil and the dish served promptly for a smooth, cohesive dressing.

Swap the beans

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

Sesamefits better
Beansthe original
Soybeanfits about as well
Black-eyed peafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, pepper, egg, vinegar. 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.

Cornbread345 recipes

Bread Pudding336 recipes

Milk Bread Rolls242 recipes

Potato Bread124 recipes

Like knowing why a recipe works?

The free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.

Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.

To Dress Dried French Beans