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Beans

A simple dish of boiled beans seasoned with onion juice, celery salt, oil, and optional molasses.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,159 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

Cook and season

  1. Boil the beans in the same water until tender.

  2. Season with onion juice, celery salt, and oil.

Brown and serve

  1. Brown in the oven at 400°F (200°C) or cook longer on the stove.

  2. Serve hot or cold with baked potato or bran bread.

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. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  4. Beans + molassestop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together491 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Onion + molassestop 36% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together524 recipes

    Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the main body of the dish once softened by soaking and boiling.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the beans.
Molasses or corn syrup
Adds sweetness and helps the beans brown during baking.

The step that matters

Soak the beans in cold water overnight. Dried beans need long soaking to hydrate evenly, so they cook to a tender texture instead of staying hard or splitting unevenly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, celery, molasses):

  1. Mustardfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, celery, molasses. 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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