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Fricasseed Windsor Beans

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
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Why it works: Beans and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Fricasseed Windsor Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Boil and blanch the Windsor beans until tender but not mealy.

  2. Cut the beans into four or eight pieces.

  3. Soak the beans in salt water.

  4. Once the water boils, add the beans with some salt.

  5. Heat the beans in a white sauce until warmed through.

  6. Serve immediately to preserve their green color.

  7. Alternatively, drain the beans when half-cooked and add to broth with butter and flour.

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. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Sauce + flourtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,078 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sauce, butter, flour):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sauce, butter, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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