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White Kidney Beans

A dish of white kidney beans cooked with onions, butter, Spanish sauce, pepper, coarse sea salt, flour, gravy, and glaze.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Kidney Beans

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cut a few onions into dice and fry them in a little butter until light brown.

  2. Add 2 tablespoons of Spanish sauce and season with pepper and coarse sea salt.

  3. Drain the cooked beans and add them to the sauce, serving hot.

  4. If you don't have Spanish sauce, add 1 tablespoon of fine flour after frying the onions.

  5. Moisten with good gravy or broth and a little glaze.

  6. Boil well and add the beans as directed.

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

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

  2. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Kidney beans + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  5. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

White kidney beans
Provide the main body and soft, starchy texture of the dish.
Onions
Caramelize while frying, adding sweetness and savory depth to the sauce.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps the onions brown.
Spanish sauce
Gives a thick, savory brown base that flavors and binds the beans.
Fine flour
Thickens the sauce when Spanish sauce is not used.
Good gravy or broth
Adds moisture and savory flavor to the sauce.

The step that matters

Fry the onions until light brown. Browning the onions develops sweet, savory flavor through caramelization. Pale onions taste flat, while over-dark onions turn bitter and can spoil the whole sauce.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits better
  2. Cashew nutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, sauce, pepper, flour. 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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