Name: Navy Beans
Ingredients: white kidney beans; water; salt; pepper; butter

Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Navy Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Shell the white kidney beans and soak them in cold water for 30 minutes to remove the raw taste.
Cook the beans in boiling water for about 25 minutes, adding a little salt.
Drain the beans well and season with pepper, salt, and butter.
Serve hot.

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.

Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Kidney beans + buttertop 22% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together186 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Kidney beans + peppertop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together718 recipes

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