Name: Broad Beans
Ingredients: 1 quart broad beans; 2 ounces butter; 4 ounces diced ham; 1 teaspoon sugar; ¼ teaspoon salt; 1 teaspoon flour; a few sweet herbs to taste; ½ cup water

Why it works: Beans and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Broad Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

Bake

In a bag, combine broad beans, butter, diced ham, sugar, salt, flour, sweet herbs, and water.
Cook in the oven for 60 minutes.

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.

Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together124,287 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Sugar + flourtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together92,116 recipes

Shared aroma: phenylacetaldehyde (hawthorne, honey).
Butter + hamtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,475 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together98,233 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

Broad beans: Form the main body of the dish and provide the bulk of the texture.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the beans as they bake.
Diced ham: Contributes savoury, salty flavour and some fat to the beans.
Flour: Thickens the cooking liquid slightly so it clings to the beans.