Name: To Keep French Beans All the Year
Ingredients: young French beans; coarse sea salt; butter (about the size of an egg); flour; pepper; ½ cup good gravy

Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Keep French Beans All the Year

Ingredients

Directions

Preserve the beans

Gather young, spot-free beans on a dry day.
Clean and dry the beans.
Layer salt and beans in a large stone jar until full.
Cover with salt, tie a coarse cloth over it, and place a weight on top.
Store in a dry cellar.

Prepare the beans

Wash the beans.
Soak the beans in soft water for 24 hours, changing the water frequently.
Boil the beans without adding salt.
Boil the beans with the white heart of a small cabbage.
Drain the beans.

Finish and serve

Chop the cabbage.
Combine the chopped cabbage with the beans in a saucepan.
Add butter rolled in flour, a little pepper, and gravy.
Stew for 10 minutes.
Serve as a side 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.

Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together106,462 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together118,967 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Young french beans: Form the main body of the dish and carry the flavour of the sauce.
Coarse sea salt: Preserves the beans by drawing out moisture and inhibiting spoilage.
Butter: Adds richness and fat, mellowing the flavour of the stew.
Flour: Thickens the butter and gravy so the stew becomes lightly saucy.
Good gravy: Adds savoury moisture and depth to the stewed beans.

The step that matters

Soak the beans in soft water for 24 hours. Soaking rehydrates the preserved beans and draws out excess salt, so they cook tender and are not overly salty. Changing the water keeps the soaking liquid fresh and removes the salt that leaches out.

Swap the beans

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

Almondfits better
Walnutfits better
Chestnutfits about as well
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, flour, pepper. 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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To Keep French Beans All the Year