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String or Butter Beans

A simple boiled bean dish flavored with milk, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

String or Butter Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using string beans, remove both strings carefully.

  2. Cut the beans into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Boil the beans until very tender, about 2 hours for older beans or less for young beans.

  2. Drain the beans and cover them with milk.

Finish

  1. Generously season with butter, and add salt and pepper to taste.

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

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

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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 or butter beans
Forms the main body of the dish and becomes soft and tender when boiled long enough.
Milk
Adds moisture and a mild, creamy quality to the beans.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the beans a smooth, savory flavor.

The step that matters

Boil until very tender. Beans need long, steady boiling to break down their starches and cell walls. Stopping early leaves them firm and tough, and older beans need the longer time.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Cocoafits better
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Lima beansfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, pepper. 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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