Name: French Beans a LA Franqaise
Ingredients: 1 pound fresh French beans; 2 to 4 ounces fresh butter, cut into small bits; white pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste; juice of ½ lemon

Why it works: Beans and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,474 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

French Beans a LA Franqaise

Ingredients

1 pound fresh French beans
2 to 4 ounces fresh butter, cut into small bits
white pepper, to taste
coarse sea salt, to taste
juice of ½ lemon

Directions

Prepare the beans

Trim the ends and stalks of the beans, then wash and drain them.
Boil the beans in a large pot of salted water for 12 to 18 minutes until tender.
Drain the beans in a colander and shake off excess water.

Finish and serve

In a clean saucepan, heat the beans over medium heat until very dry and hot.
Add the butter, white pepper, salt, and lemon juice. Toss gently for a few minutes.
Serve immediately while hot.
If the butter separates, add a spoonful of veal gravy or boiling water.

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.

Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,474 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
White pepper + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,658 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + white peppertop 28% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together3,814 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

French beans: Provide the main body of the dish and a crisp-tender texture after boiling.
Butter: Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries the seasoning and moisture.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour and balances richness.

The step that matters

Drying the beans before adding butter. Any water left on the beans dilutes and can split the butter emulsion, so the beans should be shaken dry and heated until dry before the butter goes in.

Swap the white pepper

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

Parsleyfits better
Thymefits better
Sagefits better
White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, lemon. 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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French Beans a LA Franqaise