Name: To Boil Windsor Beans
Ingredients: young Windsor beans; coarse sea salt; butter; streaked bacon or pickled pork (optional)

Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Boil Windsor Beans

Ingredients

young Windsor beans
coarse sea salt
butter
streaked bacon or pickled pork (optional)

Directions

Shell the beans just before cooking.
Wash and drain the beans.
Bring a pot of salted water to a boil.
Add the beans and cook until tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.
Drain the beans in a colander.
Serve immediately with parsley and butter or plain melted butter.
Optionally, top with boiled bacon if desired.

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 + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together13,933 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

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