Name: Bean Roast
Ingredients: 2 cups cooked pink beans; ½ pound cheese; 5 canned pimentos; 1¼ cups bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon salt; ½ cup white sauce

Why it works: Cheese and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,130 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Bean Roast

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the mixture

Pass the cheese, beans, and pimentos through a meat chopper.
Mix all the ingredients together.

Bake

Place the mixture in an oiled baking dish.
Bake at 300°F (150°C) for twenty minutes.

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.

Cheese + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,130 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Beans + cheesetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together741 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together332 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,184 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Cheese + saucetop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together1,987 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).