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Broad Beans, with Cream Poulette

A creamy sauce of butter, flour, and broth served over boiled broad beans, finished with cream and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Summer savory and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 241 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Broad Beans, with Cream Poulette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the shelled broad beans and boil them as usual.

  2. Immerse the beans in cold water and drain in a colander.

Make the sauce

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for ten minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Gradually add the white broth, stirring until smooth.

  4. Add the beans, season with salt and pepper, and add the sprig of summer savory.

  5. Let the mixture simmer slowly for twenty minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, stir in the cream and let it boil briefly.

  2. Garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

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. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Beans + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Flour + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together263 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together671 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Cooked in the butter, it thickens the broth into a smooth, body-rich sauce.
White broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, adding savory flavor.
Broad beans
Provide the main substance and tender texture of the dish.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Cooking the flour in the butter. Stirring the flour constantly while it cooks in the butter prevents lumps and scorching, and cooking it fully removes the raw starchy taste before the broth is added.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, pepper, summer savory, cream, parsley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, summer savory, cream, parsley. 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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