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Salad

Haricot Bean Salad

A salad of haricot beans with beetroot, parsley, celery, vegetables, dressed with salad oil, tarragon vinegar, plain vinegar, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the haricot beans in water overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until tender but not mashed, then let them cool.

Make the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the beans, beetroot, parsley, celery, and any cold vegetables.

  2. Pour the salad oil, tarragon vinegar, plain vinegar, pepper, and salt over the mixture, then mix well.

  3. Optionally, rub the bowl with a cut clove of garlic for added flavor.

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. Parsley + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

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

  2. Celery + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Beetroot + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together184 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Parsley + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  5. Parsley + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 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

Haricot beans
Provide the main body and creamy bulk of the salad.
Beetroot
Adds colour and a mild earthy sweetness to the salad.
Salad oil
Carries flavour and gives the beans a smooth, moist coating.
Tarragon vinegar
Adds bright acidity and a light aniseed note that lifts the beans.
Celery
Contributes a crisp texture that contrasts with the soft beans.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until tender but not mashed. Overcooking breaks down the bean skins and starches, leaving a mushy texture. Cooking gently until just tender keeps each bean whole, so it holds its shape when dressed and mixed.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Lentilsfits about as well
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beetroot, parsley, celery, carrot, tarragon, vinegar, 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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