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French Beans

Pickled white runner beans seasoned with horse-radish, black pepper, allspice, mustard seed, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Radish and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 297 recipes. Both carry eucalyptol, which smells eucalyptus, herbal. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Gather young white runner beans before they are half-grown.

  2. Prepare a hot brine and soak the beans in it for 1–2 days, depending on desired flavor.

  3. Drain the beans and let them dry completely.

Pickle

  1. Place the beans in clean, dry jars and cover with hot vinegar pickling solution.

  2. For each quart of vinegar, add 1 ounce each of horse-radish, black pepper, allspice, and mustard seed.

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. Radish + mustardtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together297 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  2. Allspice + mustardtop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  4. Horse + radishtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together529 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

  5. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

White runner beans
The main vegetable, whose firm texture is kept through the brine and vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the beans and seasons them during the brine soak.
Vinegar
Acidity that preserves the beans and gives the pickle its sharp, tangy flavor.
Horse-radish
Adds a sharp, pungent heat that infuses into the vinegar.
Mustard seed
Contributes a sharp, pungent flavor as it steeps in the vinegar.
Allspice
Adds warm, aromatic spice notes to the pickling solution.

The step that matters

Drain the beans and let them dry completely. Surface water left on the beans dilutes the hot vinegar, weakening its acidity and flavor, so the pickle may spoil or taste watery.

“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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