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To Cook Dried Beans

A method for cooking dried beans by boiling them in successive water additions and optionally simmering with cream, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

To Cook Dried Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Put the dry beans in a pot with cold water over the fire.

  2. After boiling for a few minutes, drain the beans and add boiling water.

  3. After 20 minutes, add a cup of cold water to check the boiling.

  4. Boil for another 20 minutes, then add another cup of cold water.

  5. After 1 hour and 15 minutes, the beans will be perfectly cooked.

  6. Optionally, boil a small piece of pork with the beans.

Finish

  1. For soup, boil until broken and rub through a colander.

  2. For a vegetable dish, drain the beans and simmer for 10 minutes with cream, butter, pepper, and salt.

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

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

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

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

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  4. Butter + porktop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Cream + porktop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

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

What each ingredient does

Dry hard beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook through.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the vegetable dish.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel in the vegetable dish.

The step that matters

Adding the cold water during boiling. Adding cold water pauses the boil so the beans cook gently and evenly, helping the skins stay intact rather than bursting.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Lima beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, butter, pepper, pork. 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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