Why it works: Beans and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,799 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
String Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Pull back the stem end of the beans and remove the string.
Pare a thin strip from the other edge of the pod with a sharp knife.
Cut the beans diagonally into very thin pieces, about 1.5 inches long.
Soak the beans in cold water for 30 minutes, then drain.
Cook and serve
Boil the beans in 1 quart of boiling water for 30 minutes.
Add ½ teaspoon of salt and continue boiling until tender.
Drain most of the water, leaving about 2 tablespoons with the beans.
Add 2 tablespoons of butter and season with salt and white pepper.
Shake the saucepan over the heat until the butter melts, then serve.
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 + buttertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,799 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,814 recipes
Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
-
Beans + white peppertop 33% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together87 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Butter
- Melts into the beans with the reserved water to add richness and a glossy coating.
Swap the white pepper
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter):
- Capersfits better
- Cuminfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- White pepperthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter. 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.
More string beans recipes
You might also like
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipes
Mutton Broth292 recipes
Yorkshire Pudding264 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.