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String Beans for Garniture

Boiled or warmed string beans seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper, served as a green garnish.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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 ↓

String Beans for Garniture

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Immerse string beans in cold water.

  2. Cut string beans into diamond shapes, about 1 inch long.

  3. Boil the cut string beans.

Cook and season

  1. Warm the string beans thoroughly.

  2. Season the string beans.

  3. Add the boiled string beans and a piece of butter to a saucepan.

  4. Toss them over the fire for a few minutes.

  5. Season the string beans.

Dress and serve

  1. Dress them in bunches, alternating with other vegetables.

  2. Dress the string beans plain or with sauce, ensuring they stay green.

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

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

  2. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the main vegetable, supplying the crisp-tender texture and fresh flavour of the dish.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, coating the beans and carrying flavour during tossing.

The step that matters

Dress the string beans plain or with sauce, ensuring they stay green.. Overcooking breaks down chlorophyll, which turns green vegetables dull olive-brown. Keeping cooking brief and finishing promptly preserves the bright colour and a pleasant crisp texture.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, 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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