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Pickled Beans

Pickled beans are beans preserved in vinegar, salt, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Vinegar and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 15% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 20,806 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Pickled Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Boil the beans for about three minutes, then drain.

  2. Put the beans in fresh water with coarse sea salt and cook until nearly done, then drain again.

Pickle

  1. Cover the beans with vinegar and add 1 cup of sugar for every quart of vinegar.

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. Vinegar + sugartop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,806 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

  3. Beans + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,587 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Fresh beans
Form the main body of the pickle and take up the vinegar brine as they cook.
Vinegar
Provides the acidity that preserves the beans and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Sugar
Balances the sharpness of the vinegar with sweetness.

The step that matters

Cooking the beans until nearly done. Beans cooked fully before pickling turn soft and mushy in the vinegar, while undercooked beans stay raw and starchy. Stopping at nearly done lets the beans finish tender while still holding their shape and crispness.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Soybeanfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, sugar. 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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