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Salad

Bean Salad

A salad of boiled broad beans seasoned with garlic, parsley, olive oil, vinegar, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Remove the skins from the broad beans, leaving only the green part.

  2. Rub a salad bowl with garlic.

Dress and serve

  1. Add chopped parsley, olive oil, black pepper, and coarse sea salt to the bowl.

  2. Mix well, then add vinegar last.

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 + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Garlic + olivetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,665 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,308 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Parsley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Broad beans
Provide the main body and mild, buttery texture of the salad.
Olive oil
Carries the garlic and herb aroma and coats the beans with richness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the beans and oil.
Garlic
Contributes pungent aroma that infuses the bowl and dressing.

The step that matters

Adding the vinegar last. Acid added after the oil and seasoning is mixed in lets it dissolve into the dressing and coat the beans evenly, rather than pooling. Adding it early can make the parsley and garlic taste harsher and dull the oil's aroma.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, parsley, olive, pepper, vinegar):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Lentilsfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, parsley, olive, pepper, vinegar. 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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