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French, String and Wax Beans

A boiled bean dish seasoned with salt, butter, sweet cream, and optional salt pork.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

French, String and Wax Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Snap the beans when bent.

  2. String the beans.

  3. Break off the ends of the beans.

  4. Cut the beans into 2 or 3 pieces.

  5. Soak the beans in cold water for 15 minutes.

  6. Drain the beans.

Cook

  1. Boil salted water in a pot. Add the beans to the pot. Cover the pot.

  2. Boil for 30 minutes.

  3. Uncover the pot.

  4. Cook steadily for 1 to 4 hours for light beans, or 1 hour longer for green beans.

  5. Check if the beans are nearly dry. If the beans are nearly dry, do not drain.

  6. Add butter to the beans. Add sweet cream to the beans. Add more salt if needed.

  7. Cook a piece of salt pork with the beans. Remove the pork before serving.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  3. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  4. Cream + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  5. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Provide the main body and tender texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the beans a smooth, savoury coating.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and body, softening the flavour of the cooked beans.
Salt pork
Adds savoury, salty flavour to the beans as they cook.

The step that matters

Cooking until nearly dry. Beans cooked too long lose their shape and bright colour, while stopping too early leaves them tough. Checking they are nearly dry before draining keeps moisture and flavour in the pot, so the butter and cream cling to the beans.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, cream, pork):

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Peanutfits better
  3. Filbertfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, cream, pork. 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.

More french beans recipes

Boiled 29Pickled 12Preserved 9Plain 4Stewed 4Creamed 3 See all 54 →

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