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Escalloped Beans and Corn

A baked dish of green beans and corn with a butter‑flour milk sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Escalloped Beans and Corn

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Break and cook the green beans in salted water with pork drippings until tender.

  2. Cook the corn for 15 to 20 minutes.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a baking dish, layer the beans and corn until full.

  2. Mix the milk, butter, and flour together, then pour over the beans and corn.

  3. Bake in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  2. Pork + corntop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,069 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Corn + milktop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,955 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

  4. Green beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together93 recipes

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

  5. Green beans + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together39 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Form the bulk of the dish and become tender as they cook.
Corn
Adds sweetness and body alongside the beans.
Milk
Forms a moist, creamy sauce that surrounds the vegetables as it bakes.
Flour
Thickens the milk mixture so the sauce holds together rather than running off.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavor and a smoother sauce.

Swap the green beans

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

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, corn, milk, flour, butter. 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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