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Salad

Haricot Bean Salad

A salad of soaked haricot beans topped with shredded tomato, beetroot, celery, and seasoned cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Tomato and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the haricot beans for 6 to 8 hours.

  2. Boil the beans until tender, then let them cool.

Assemble the salad

  1. Place the beans in the center of a salad bowl.

  2. Surround the beans with shredded tomato, beetroot, and celery.

  3. If desired, dip the beans in olive oil and vinegar before adding the cream.

  4. Whip the cream and season with salt and pepper, then cover the salad with it.

  5. Garnish the cream with a sprinkle of cayenne pepper and arrange the beetroot to create a red border.

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. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,539 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  3. Beans + beetroottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,377 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the substantial body of the salad and absorb dressing as they cool.
Heavy cream
Whipped, it forms a rich, smooth topping that adds fat and mouthfeel.
Tomato
Adds moisture and mild acidity against the starchy beans.
Beetroot
Adds earthy sweetness and vivid color to the salad and border.
Celery
Adds crisp texture and a fresh, lightly bitter crunch.

The step that matters

Whip the cream. Cream whips best when cold and stops just short of stiff peaks; overwhipping turns it grainy and it can separate, so it will not spread into a smooth topping.

Swap the beetroot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, celery, cream, pepper, olive, vinegar):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, celery, cream, pepper, olive, vinegar. 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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