Name: Frijoles Negros Escabechados
Ingredients: 2 cups dried black beans; 2 large onions, thickly sliced; 1/2 cup red wine vinegar; 3 tablespoons vegetable oil; 3 cloves garlic, minced; 1 1/2 teaspoons cumin seeds, crushed; 2 ancho chilies, seeded and crushed; Salt and pepper to taste; 4 hard-boiled eggs, chopped; 1/2 cup pitted black olives, chopped

Why it works: Beans and cumin match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,188 recipes. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

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 + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,188 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Onion + garlictop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + cumintop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,306 recipes

Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried black beans: Cooked until tender, they form the body of the dish.
Onions: Sweetness and softness, mellowed by boiling and then simmering with the vinegar.
Red wine vinegar: Acidity that brightens the dish and helps keep it tangy.
Vegetable oil: Fat that carries the garlic, cumin and chili flavors through the skillet.
Ancho chilies: Mild, fruity heat and a deeper, smoky chili flavor.
Cumin seeds: Warm, earthy aroma that is released when the seeds are crushed and cooked in oil.

The step that matters

Cooking the garlic, cumin and chilies in oil. Frying the spices briefly in hot oil releases their fat-soluble aromas. Burnt garlic turns bitter, so the mixture should be stirred over moderate heat for about three minutes.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, red wine, vinegar, clove, garlic, cumin, pepper):

Chickpeafits about as well
Lentilsfits about as well
Beansthe original
Sesamefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, red wine, vinegar, clove, garlic, cumin, 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Black Bean	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	114
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Olive	1 large (4g)	4
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Seed	not in our table	0

Frijoles Negros Escabechados