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Fava Beans with Olive Oil

A simple dish of fava beans simmered with onions, mint, olive oil, water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,470 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Fava Beans with Olive Oil

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim the fava beans and place them in a suitable pot.

  2. Slice the onions and scatter the finely chopped mint over the beans.

  3. Add the olive oil and water, then season with salt and pepper.

Cook and serve

  1. Boil on medium heat until the beans are tender, avoiding stirring to prevent discoloration.

  2. Serve hot or cold.

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 + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  2. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  3. Onion + olivetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together29,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Mint + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,372 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Mint + olivetop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,240 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Fava beans
Provide the main body of the dish and its tender, starchy texture when cooked.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving the beans a smooth mouthfeel.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften in the cooking liquid.
Mint
Contributes a fresh, aromatic herbal flavour that lifts the cooked beans.

The step that matters

Boil until the beans are tender without stirring. Stirring breaks up the beans and can bruise them, which encourages discoloration. Gentle, undisturbed simmering keeps them intact and evenly cooked, so they reach tenderness without turning dark.

Swap the mint

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, olive, pepper):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Mintthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, olive, 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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