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French Beans , a LA Creme

A creamy sauce of butter, egg yolks, cream, and vinegar coats tender French beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

French Beans , a LA Creme

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut the beans into 8 pieces and soak them in water with salt.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water until tender, being careful not to lose their green color.

  3. Drain the beans and set aside.

Make the cream sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over low heat.

  2. Beat the egg yolks with the cream and add to the melted butter.

  3. Stir in the vinegar and the beans, simmer for 5 minutes, stirring gently to prevent burning.

  4. 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.

  1. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  4. Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  5. Butter + vinegartop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,513 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the cream and butter into a smooth, rich sauce as they set gently with heat.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and giving the sauce a silky texture.
Cream
Adds moisture and richness, softening the sauce and balancing the egg yolks.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery, rich sauce.

The step that matters

Keep the sauce over low heat while simmering the beans. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if they get too hot, and the sauce can scorch on the bottom. Low heat and gentle stirring keep the sauce smooth.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pecansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cream, 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.

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