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Butter Beans

A dish of butter beans topped with a sauce of egg yolks, tarragon, lemon juice, butter, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Tarragon and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Butter Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the butter beans in water for 24 hours.

  2. Simmer the beans gently for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the beans and place them in a hot dish.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter and allow it to cool.

  2. Add the egg yolks, vinegar, and lemon juice to the butter.

  3. Stir the mixture briskly over low heat until thickened.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the beans and 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. Tarragon + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Tarragon + vinegartop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,547 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beans + tarragontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together92 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter beans
Form the main body of the dish, giving it bulk and a soft, tender texture after long simmering.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, emulsified body.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the sauce feel smooth and creamy on the beans.
Tarragon
Contributes a distinct aromatic, slightly anise-like flavour to the dish.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk sauce over low heat. Egg yolks begin to set around 65 to 70 degrees Celsius and can scramble if overheated. Gentle, constant stirring over low heat keeps the sauce smooth and thickened rather than grainy.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, tarragon, lemon, 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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