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French Beans

Pickled green beans flavored with white wine vinegar, mace, pepper, and ginger.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and ginger match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,800 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the pickle

  1. Drain the green beans in a sieve.

  2. In a pot, combine white wine vinegar, mace, pepper, and ginger; boil for 10 minutes.

Pack and seal

  1. Place the beans in a jar and pour the hot pickle over them.

  2. Once cooled, seal the jar 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.

  1. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  2. White wine + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,776 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Mace + gingertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,152 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Pepper + green beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

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

  5. Ginger + green beanstop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 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

Green beans
Provide the crisp, firm base that the brine flavours and holds its texture through pickling.
White wine vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that gives the pickle its tang and helps preserve the beans.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavour to the brine.
Ginger
Adds a warm, aromatic bite that gives the pickle depth.
Pepper
Adds a sharp, aromatic heat that seasons the brine.

The step that matters

Pouring the hot pickle over the beans. The brine must be boiled so the vinegar and spices are fully infused before it goes over the beans. Hot liquid carries flavour into the vegetables more readily than cool liquid, and the acid in the brine is what keeps the pickle stable.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (white wine, vinegar, pepper, ginger, green beans):

  1. Clovefits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Turmericfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against white wine, vinegar, pepper, ginger, green beans. 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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