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Bean Polenta

Bean Polenta is a dish of boiled beans cooked with butter, molasses, mustard, vinegar, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and mustard match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 852 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Polenta

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans and soak them overnight in lukewarm water.

  2. In the morning, drain the water, cover the beans with fresh cold water, and bring to a slow boil.

  3. Boil slowly for one hour, then drain again.

  4. Cover the beans with one quart of fresh boiling water and boil slowly for another hour.

Finish and serve

  1. When done, press the beans through a colander and return to the kettle.

  2. Add the butter, molasses, mustard, salt, pepper, and vinegar; stir and boil for ten minutes.

  3. Serve in a vegetable tureen.

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 + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  2. Vinegar + mustardtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Mustard + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,430 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 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

Small white soup beans
Form the bulk of the dish; pressing them softens them into a smooth, thick body.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the mash a smoother, rounder mouthfeel.
Molasses
Adds sweetness and dark, caramel-like depth of flavour.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sweet molasses and balances the richness.
French mustard
Adds sharp, pungent flavour that cuts through the sweetness.

The step that matters

Boil the beans in two stages with a drain in between. Fresh water replaces the liquid that carries off bitter compounds and some gas-causing sugars, and a full second boil softens the beans enough to press smoothly. Skipping the drain or cutting the second boil leaves the mash grainy and harsher in flavour.

“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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