Name: Cold Boiled Beans Salad
Ingredients: 2 cups cold boiled beans; ¼ cup olive oil; ¼ teaspoon black pepper; 2 teaspoons mustard; ⅓ cup white wine

Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Cold Boiled Beans Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

In a large bowl, combine the cold boiled beans.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the olive oil, black pepper, mustard, and white wine.

Dress and serve

Pour the dressing over the beans and toss gently to coat.
Serve immediately as a salad.

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.

Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,470 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + mustardtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,950 recipes

Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).
Pepper + mustardtop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,430 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 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

Cold boiled beans: Form the bulk of the salad and provide its main texture.
Olive oil: Carries flavour and gives the dressing a smooth, rich body.
Mustard: Adds sharp flavour and helps the oil and wine stay blended in the dressing.
White wine: Adds acidity that brightens the dressing and balances the oil.