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Beans, French, Salad of

A chilled salad of cooked beans dressed with vinegar, oil, pepper, and coarse 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 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 ↓

Beans, French, Salad of

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the cold cooked beans well.

  2. Saturate the beans with vinegar and let them sit for 20 minutes.

  3. Drain the beans again.

Dress and serve

  1. Add oil if desired, along with a little pepper and coarse sea salt.

  2. Serve with any salad sauce if preferred.

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

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

  2. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  3. Beans + vinegartop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Make up the bulk of the salad and give it its firm, tender texture.
Vinegar
Adds sharp acidity that seasons the beans and brightens their flavor.
Oil
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the beans, if used.

The step that matters

Drain the beans again after the vinegar soak. Beans left sitting in vinegar hold extra liquid. Draining them again removes the excess so the salad stays well seasoned and not watery or diluted when oil and salt are added.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Soybeanfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against vinegar, 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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