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French Beans

A dish of boiled French beans cooked with broth, cream, butter, flour, and seasoned with pepper, vinegar, chives, shallot, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Chive and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 450 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

French Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cut off the ends and stalks of the French beans.

  2. Divide the beans in half or shred them.

  3. Soak the beans in saltwater.

Cook

  1. Bring a saucepan of salted water to a boil.

  2. Add the beans to the boiling water.

  3. Cook the beans until tender.

  4. Serve the beans immediately to preserve their green color.

  5. Alternatively, when the beans are half done, drain them.

  6. Add the drained beans to ⅓ cup of strained broth.

  7. Stir in a little cream, butter, and flour.

  8. Stew the mixture gently until tender.

Other preparations

  1. For Scarlet Runners, boil the beans for 20 minutes or until tender.

  2. Season the boiled Scarlet Runners with pepper and salt.

  3. For a homely preparation, place the beans in a dripping pan under roasting meat.

  4. To simmer the seed of dwarf scarlet runners, boil them in soft water until tender.

  5. Add an onion, butter rolled in flour, and hot water to the simmering beans.

  6. Stir the mixture until it simmers.

  7. Add salt, 2 teaspoons of vinegar, minced chives or shallot, and parsley.

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. Chive + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Beans + chivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together180 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Beans + shallottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together147 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Flour + shallottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,081 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

French beans
Form the main body of the dish, cooked until tender while staying green.
Broth
Adds savory liquid that flavors the beans as they stew.
Cream
Adds richness and a smoother, silkier texture to the stewed beans.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavor through the stewed beans.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid so it clings to the beans.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the beans.

The step that matters

Serve the beans immediately to preserve their green color.. Green vegetables contain chlorophyll, which breaks down with prolonged heat and holding, turning dull olive. Serving promptly keeps the color bright.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, butter, flour, pepper, vinegar, chive, shallot):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Cashew nutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, flour, pepper, vinegar, chive, shallot. 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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