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Red Beans

Red beans cooked with bacon, onion, carrot, sugar, bicarbonate of soda, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,443 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Red Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water.

  2. In the morning, wash and drain the beans.

Cook

  1. Put the beans in a kettle with the bacon, onion, carrot, and enough cold water to cover.

  2. Add the bicarbonate of soda and boil gently until the beans are tender, about 1 hour.

Finish and serve

  1. When done, drain the beans and place them in a serving dish.

  2. Add the butter, salt, and pepper; serve immediately.

  3. Slice the bacon thinly and use it as a garnish if desired.

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 + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the dish's main body and, once cooked until tender, its soft, starchy texture.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the cooking water and the beans.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred into the hot beans.
Bicarbonate of soda
Raises the cooking water's pH, helping the beans soften more quickly.
Onion
Contributes aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as it cooks down into the broth.

The step that matters

Boil gently until tender. A gentle simmer cooks the beans evenly and keeps their skins intact. A hard boil can break them apart and leave the centres firm, so the beans should be checked for tenderness rather than judged by time alone.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, carrot, sugar, pepper, butter):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, sugar, pepper, butter. 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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