Name: Broad Beans
Ingredients: broad beans; parsley; butter; milk; cream; tomatoes; bacon; breadcrumbs; cheese

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Broad Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Boil broad beans until tender.
Serve with chopped parsley and melted butter.
For a creamy version, boil beans in milk and serve with cream and chopped parsley.
For a tomato version, stew beans and serve with a puree of tomatoes.
For a Mentone style, serve beans in Soubise sauce, garnished with fried bacon rolls and croutons sprinkled with grated cheese.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together81,283 recipes

Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parsley + tomatotop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, milk, cream, tomato, cheese):

Celeryfits better
Garlicfits better
Cinnamonfits better
Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, milk, cream, tomato, cheese. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.