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Pickled String Beans

Pickled string beans preserved in a saltwater brine, vinegar, alum, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and cherry match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 192 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Pickled String Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Brine

  1. Soak the string beans in a strong saltwater brine for 24 hours.

  2. Pour off the brine and rinse the beans in cold water for 5 minutes, then drain.

Pickle and seal

  1. Scald the beans in vinegar for a few minutes with a little alum and spices.

  2. Seal the beans in jars or crocks using the same 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. Beans + cherrytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together192 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + cherrytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together767 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyl acetate (fruit).

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

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
The main vegetable that is softened by brining and then flavoured by the vinegar.
Coarse sea salt
Draws water out of the beans during the long brine and seasons them.
Vinegar
Provides acidity that preserves the beans and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Alum
Helps the beans stay firm and crisp during scalding.

The step that matters

Rinsing after the brine. The beans must be rinsed well after the 24-hour brine so excess salt is removed; otherwise the pickle will taste overly salty. Draining afterward also keeps extra water from diluting the vinegar.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, cherry. 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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