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French Beans

A sautéed bean dish with butter, ketchup, pickles, wine, onion, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Mushroom and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,765 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut and string the beans, then cut them into three pieces.

  2. Soak the beans in salt and water for 30 minutes, then dry them.

  3. Fry the beans until brown, then pour off the fat.

Make the sauce

  1. Add boiling water and the butter rolled in flour to the pan.

  2. Stir in ketchup, mushroom pickle, white wine, onion, mace, nutmeg, pepper, and salt. Mix well and add the beans.

  3. Shake the pan until combined.

  4. Remove the onion and transfer the mixture to a serving dish.

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. Mushroom + white winetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

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

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

  5. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 browned for a savoury bite.
Butter
Adds richness and, rolled in flour, thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavour to the sauce.
Ketchup
Contributes sweetness, acidity and a tangy savoury flavour to the sauce.
Mushroom pickle
Adds concentrated savoury, tangy flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the beans until brown. Browning develops flavour through the Maillard reaction, but overcooked beans turn bitter and dry. Pour off the fat so the beans do not stay greasy in the sauce.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, ketchup, mushroom, white wine, onion, clove):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, ketchup, mushroom, white wine, onion, clove. 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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