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Stewed Beans

A simple stew of red beans, onion, green pepper, and lard, seasoned with sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the red beans in cold water.

  2. Boil quickly until soft, adding boiling water if necessary.

Fry and stew

  1. In a frying pan, heat the lard.

  2. Add the chopped onion and fry until well cooked.

  3. Add the beans and salt to taste.

  4. Stir in the green pepper or chili pepper.

  5. Continue frying while stirring to prevent burning.

  6. Cover the pan with the bean cooking liquid.

  7. If there's not enough liquid, add boiling water.

  8. Cover and cook slowly until the sauce is reduced to your desired dryness.

  9. Remove the onion before serving.

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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Red beans
Form the main body of the dish and, once softened, thicken the stew.
Lard
Fat for frying that carries flavor and gives the onion a rich base.
Onion
Builds savory sweetness as it fries, flavoring the sauce before it is removed.
Green pepper or chili pepper
Adds aroma and a fresh, mildly sharp note to the stewed beans.

The step that matters

Continue frying while stirring to prevent burning. The beans and sauce contain sugars and starches that scorch on hot pan bottoms. Constant stirring spreads heat evenly and keeps the sauce from sticking and turning bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, 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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