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String Beans, with Cream

A creamy string bean dish cooked with pork fat, parsley, and a butter‑egg yolk cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

String Beans, with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Prepare the string beans as directed in a previous recipe.

  2. Place the beans in a flat saucepan with the scraped pork.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and add the parsley.

Cook and finish

  1. Simmer slowly for 30 minutes.

  2. In a bowl, mix the cream with the egg yolks and butter.

  3. Add this mixture to the beans and toss well.

  4. Remove the parsley and serve.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
The main vegetable, cooked slowly until tender in the pork and seasonings.
Fresh fat pork
Renders fat and flavour into the beans as they simmer.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety body to the finished beans.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream mixture gently and bind it to the beans.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Adding the cream and egg yolk mixture. Raw egg yolks thicken when heated, but if the beans are too hot or the mixture is added carelessly it can scramble into lumps. Toss gently and keep the heat low so the sauce turns smooth.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Pistachiofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, parsley, cream, egg, 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.

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