Name: String Beans
Ingredients: string beans; boiling water; cream sauce (optional)

Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

String Beans

Ingredients

string beans
boiling water
cream sauce (optional)

Directions

Break off the tips and stems of the string beans to remove the thin strings.
If using for salad, cook the beans whole; if serving as a vegetable, cut them into 1-inch lengths.
Simmer the beans gently in boiling water for at least 1.5 hours without adding salt.
Drain the beans in a colander and place the colander in a pan of cold water for 20 minutes.
After 20 minutes, drain the beans again and set aside for salad or cook in cream sauce if serving as a vegetable.

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.

Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,787 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,184 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,341 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).