Skip to main content
Main

Fifty Lunches

A hearty bean stew with bacon, vegetables, herbs, tomato, and a Parmesan‑flour sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 16 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Fifty Lunches

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the white haricots for 12 hours, then drain.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the haricots, bacon, onion, celery, carrot, dried herbs, salt, and pepper. Cover with 3 pints of lukewarm water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Simmer until the beans are tender.

  5. Strain the beans, reserving the cooking water, and set the beans aside.

Make the sauce

  1. In a clean stewpan, make a roux with the butter and flour.

  2. Gradually stir in 1 pint of the reserved cooking water.

  3. Boil the sauce and skim off any foam.

  4. Add the grated Parmesan and tomato conserve to the sauce.

  5. Pass the sauce through a fine sieve.

Bake and serve

  1. Arrange the beans in a fireproof dish.

  2. Moisten the beans with the sauce.

  3. Sprinkle the beans with additional Parmesan.

  4. Dot the beans with butter.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven until thoroughly hot.

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

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  5. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 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

White haricots
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy during simmering.
Flour
Thickens the butter and cooking water into a smooth sauce as a roux.
Butter
Adds richness and helps form the roux that thickens the sauce.
Parmesan cheese
Adds savory, salty depth and helps the sauce taste rich.
Tomato conserve or puree
Adds acidity and body, giving the sauce a rounded, tangy flavor.
Bacon
Contributes smoky, savory fat and flavor to the cooking water and beans.

The step that matters

Make the roux and sauce smooth. Adding the cooking water too quickly or without stirring can leave lumps. Stirring gradually while the roux is cooked lets the flour hydrate evenly, and skimming foam keeps the sauce clean.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (celery, carrot, pepper, butter, flour, parmesan cheese, tomato):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, carrot, pepper, butter, flour, parmesan cheese, tomato. 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.

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipes