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Bean Salad, with Aspic Jelly, German Style

A bean salad seasoned with pepper, salt, oil, vinegar, parsley or chives, mayonnaise, and set in aspic jelly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bean Salad, with Aspic Jelly, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the beans until tender, then let them cool in their broth.

  2. Select the best beans for decoration, splitting half of them in halves.

  3. Drain the remaining beans and place them in a bowl.

Dress and mould

  1. Season the beans with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar.

  2. Add chopped parsley or chives and a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise dressing.

  3. Mix everything well and fill the center of a Charlotte mold.

  4. Smooth the top and set aside to firm up.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

What each ingredient does

Dry white beans
Form the bulk of the salad, becoming tender and holding the shape of the mold.
Oil
Adds fat and a silky mouthfeel that coats the beans.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the fat.
Mayonnaise dressing
Adds fat and creaminess that binds the beans together.

The step that matters

Drain the remaining beans and place them in a bowl. Beans that are still wet dilute the dressing and make the salad loose, so it may not hold its shape in the mold. Draining well helps the salad set firm.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, vinegar, parsley. 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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