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Pickled Beans

Pickled beans are string beans preserved in a vinegar and sugar brine with mustard, flour, turmeric, celery seed, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Pickled Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans, remove tips and strings, and cut into 2-inch pieces.

  2. Cook the beans in boiling salted water for 15 minutes.

  3. Drain the beans.

Make the pickling sauce

  1. Heat the vinegar to boiling.

  2. Mix the sugar, flour, and seasonings.

  3. Add the vinegar slowly.

  4. Cook until thick.

Combine and seal

  1. Add the beans.

  2. Cook for 5 minutes.

  3. Bottle and seal.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Mustard + turmerictop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,279 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  4. Turmeric + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,356 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beans + turmerictop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together419 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the main body of the pickle and provide the crisp-tender bite.
Vinegar
Provides the sharp acidity that preserves and flavors the pickle.
Brown sugar
Adds sweetness and depth that balances the sharp vinegar.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavor to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the vinegar mixture into a thick, cohesive sauce.
Turmeric powder
Gives the pickle its yellow color and a mild earthy aroma.

The step that matters

Add the vinegar slowly. Adding hot vinegar gradually to the sugar, flour and seasonings keeps the flour dispersed so it does not form lumps. Lumps would leave the sauce uneven and hard to thicken smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric):

  1. Cuminfits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Cardamomfits better
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, vinegar, sugar, mustard, flour, turmeric. 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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