Name: Red Beans, Plain Boiled
Ingredients: 1 pint dried red beans; ½ tablespoon lard or butter; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Red Beans, Plain Boiled

Ingredients

1 pint dried red beans
½ tablespoon lard or butter
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste

Directions

Prepare

Soak the beans in cold water overnight or for at least 5-6 hours.
Drain the beans and place them in a pot with 1 quart of cold water.

Cook and serve

Bring to a boil and cook for 1.5 to 2 hours.
Season with salt and pepper, then add the lard or butter.
Cook for an additional 15 minutes and serve in their own juice.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried red beans: Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook through.
Lard or butter: Adds richness and a smooth, rounded fat flavour to the beans' cooking liquid.