Name: French Beans a LA Franqaise
Ingredients: 1 to 2 quarts young, freshly-gathered beans; 2 tablespoons fresh butter; 2 teaspoons all-purpose flour; Salt and pepper to taste; ⅓ cup good veal gravy or sweet rich cream; 2 egg yolks; 1 tablespoon lemon juice; 1 tablespoon minced parsley (optional)

Why it works: Lemon and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Beans a LA Franqaise

Ingredients

1 to 2 quarts young, freshly-gathered beans
2 tablespoons fresh butter
2 teaspoons all-purpose flour
Salt and pepper to taste
⅓ cup good veal gravy or sweet rich cream
2 egg yolks
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon minced parsley (optional)

Directions

Prepare the beans

Shell the beans just before cooking, wash, and drain them.
Boil the beans in salted water until tender, about 15 to 20 minutes.

Make the sauce

In a clean saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.
Stir in the flour and cook gently until lightly browned.
Add salt and pepper, then gradually pour in the veal gravy or cream.
Toss the beans in the sauce until heated through.
Remove from heat and quickly stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

Serve

Serve immediately, optionally garnished with minced parsley.

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.

Lemon + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 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

Butter: Enriches the sauce with fat and flavor as the roux base.
Flour: Thickens the butter into a roux that gives the sauce body.
Egg yolks: Enrich and thicken the sauce, giving it a smooth, rich texture.
Veal gravy or cream: Supplies the liquid and richness that form the body of the sauce.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the richness of the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolks off the heat. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated but curdle if they get too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring them in, and stirring quickly, keeps the sauce smooth and silky.

“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