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Molded Haricot Beans

A molded dish of cooked haricot beans with onion, turnip, carrot, and beef dripping, seasoned with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Molded Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the haricot beans with the onion, turnip, and carrot until cooked.

  2. Drain and pass the beans and vegetables through a sieve.

  3. Stir in the melted beef dripping (or butter) and season with salt, pepper, and nutmeg.

Mold and steam

  1. Press the mixture into a buttered mold and cover with greased paper.

  2. Steam for 45 minutes.

Serve

  1. Let the mold stand for a few moments, then turn out onto a hot dish.

  2. Garnish with small portions of cooked bacon.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Beans + turniptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the main body of the mold and set into a firm, sliceable mass when steamed.
Beef dripping
Adds fat and richness, giving the mixture moisture and a smoother texture.
Onion
Adds savory aromatic flavor to the bean purée as it cooks.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and color to the purée.
Turnip
Adds mild earthy flavor and body to the purée.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture into the mold. The purée must be packed firmly with no air pockets so it holds its shape when turned out. Loose packing can cause it to crumble or collapse during steaming and unmolding.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Cuminfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, turnip, carrot, beef, 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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