Name: French Beans
Ingredients: white runner beans; coarse sea salt; water; horseradish, sliced; black pepper; allspice; mustard seed; vinegar

Why it works: Horseradish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,832 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Gather young white runner beans before they are half grown.
Prepare a brine with water and coarse sea salt.
Place the beans in the hot brine and let them soak for 1-2 days, depending on desired flavor.
Drain the beans and let them dry completely.
In clean jars, layer the beans and cover with hot vinegar that has been steeped with horseradish, black pepper, allspice, salt, and mustard seed.
Ensure the vinegar covers the beans by at least 2 inches to prevent spoilage.

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.

Horseradish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,832 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,928 recipes

Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).
Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Horseradish + allspicetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together654 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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 (horseradish, pepper, allspice, mustard, vinegar):

Lentilsfits about as well
Beansthe original
Chestnutfits about as well
Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against horseradish, pepper, allspice, mustard, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.