Name: To Pickle French Beans
Ingredients: young small French beans; coarse sea salt; water; vine leaves; sliced ginger; black peppercorns; mace; vinegar

Why it works: Beans and ginger work together. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 609 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

To Pickle French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the beans in a strong saltwater solution for 2 days.
Dry the beans on a cloth.
Line the bottom and sides of a preserving pan with vine leaves.
Add the beans, sliced ginger, black peppercorns, and mace.
Cover with more vine leaves and fill the pan with vinegar.
Place a plate on top to trap steam and set the pan by the fire for 3 to 4 hours.
Once the beans turn green, remove them and transfer to jars.
Seal the jars tightly.

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 + gingertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together609 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Ginger + macetop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,152 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,347 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Ginger + vinegartop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,126 recipes

Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
Mace + vinegartop 25% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together4,415 recipes