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Salad

String Bean Salad

A salad of string beans, onion, oil, vinegar, lemon juice, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

String Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. String the beans and cut them into thin lengthwise slices.

Cook and dress

  1. Boil the beans until tender, then drain and let cool.

  2. In a bowl, combine the cooled beans with salt, pepper, grated onion, oil, vinegar, water, and lemon juice.

  3. Toss to mix well 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. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  2. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  4. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,474 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
Form the bulk of the salad and provide its tender, crisp-cooked texture.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor and coating the beans smoothly.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the salad and balances the oil.
Lemon juice
Adds further acidity and fresh citrus aroma to the dressing.
Onion
Adds sharp, aromatic pungency that flavors the dressing throughout.

The step that matters

Let the beans cool before dressing. Dressing hot beans causes the oil and acid to be absorbed unevenly and can make the beans soft and greasy. Cooling first keeps their texture firm and lets the dressing coat them evenly.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper, onion, vinegar):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Limefits better
  3. Mangofits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, onion, vinegar. 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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