Name: French Beans a LA Poulette
Ingredients: 1 pound young and tender French beans; ½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 egg yolks; 2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped; ¼ cup fresh butter; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; ½ lemon, juiced

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

French Beans a LA Poulette

Ingredients

1 pound young and tender French beans
½ cup coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt')
2 egg yolks
2 tablespoons fresh parsley, finely chopped
¼ cup fresh butter
¼ teaspoon black pepper
½ lemon, juiced

Directions

Cook the beans

Boil the French beans in salted water over high heat until tender and green.
Drain the beans thoroughly and place them on a serving dish.

Make the sauce

In a separate pan, reduce a little sauce tournee.
Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks and add the chopped parsley.
Stir in the butter, pepper, and lemon juice until well combined.

Serve

Pour the sauce over the beans and serve immediately.

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.

Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together14,037 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 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

Egg yolks: Thicken the sauce as they set gently with heat, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, glossy mouthfeel.
French beans: Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender and green.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and egg sauce.

The step that matters

Thicken the sauce with the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat; if the sauce is too hot they scramble into lumps. Keep the heat low and stir constantly so the sauce stays smooth.

Swap the beans

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

Chickpeafits better
Walnutfits better
Pistachiofits about as well
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parsley, butter, pepper, lemon. 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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French Beans a LA Poulette