Name: Baked Beans
Ingredients: beans; San Juan or El Dorado olive oil; peanut or almond cream; water

Why it works: Beans and peanut match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 190 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Baked Beans

Ingredients

beans
San Juan or El Dorado olive oil
peanut or almond cream
water

Directions

Prepare and cook the beans as directed.
Add olive oil in place of chopped olives.
To make the nut cream, rub nut butter smooth.
Slowly add water until the desired consistency is reached.

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 + peanuttop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together190 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,470 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Olive + peanuttop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,027 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).