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To Boil French Beans

A simple boiled French bean dish flavored with butter, lemon, salt, pepper, and optional veal gravy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

To Boil French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Trim the ends and stalks from the beans.

  2. Bring a large saucepan of salted water to a rapid boil.

  3. Add the beans and cook until tender, about 12 to 18 minutes.

  4. Drain the beans and place them in a clean dish.

Finish and serve

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan and add the beans.

  2. Add lemon juice, salt, and pepper, and toss gently over low heat.

  3. If desired, add veal gravy or boiling water to moisten.

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. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Lemon + vealtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together4,580 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 vegetable body and tender bite once cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating that carries flavour across the beans.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the buttery flavour and balances richness.
Veal gravy or boiling water
Adds moisture and savoury depth to loosen the buttery coating.

The step that matters

Boil the beans rapidly and cook until just tender. A rapid boil in well-salted water cooks the beans quickly and evenly and helps them keep their bright green colour. Overcooking softens the cell walls too far, leaving the beans limp and dull.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, pepper, veal. 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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