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Haricot Beans, with Onions

Haricot beans simmered with onions, butter, and brown gravy, served as a side for roast meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 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 ↓

Haricot Beans, with Onions

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans in two or three waters, removing any discolored ones, and soak them in plenty of cold water overnight.

  2. Drain the beans and boil them in fresh water until tender but not broken.

  3. Drain the beans again and keep them warm in the oven.

Make and serve

  1. Chop the boiled onions and fry them in butter until golden.

  2. Mix the boiled beans with the fried onions, stirring with a fork.

  3. Moisten the mixture with the brown gravy and serve as an accompaniment to roast meat.

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. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 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

Haricot beans
Provide the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender when boiled.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth when fried golden in butter.
Butter
Carries the frying of the onions and adds richness and browning.
Brown gravy
Adds moisture and savory flavor, moistening the beans and onions together.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until tender but not broken. Dried beans need thorough cooking to soften their starch fully, but overcooking makes their skins split and the beans turn mushy. Stopping when they are tender keeps them whole so they hold their shape when mixed with the onions and gravy.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter):

  1. Sesamefits better
  2. Peanutfits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter. 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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