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Stewed Kidney-beans

A simple stew of red kidney beans cooked slowly with butter, salt, pepper, and optional onion.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 68,474 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Kidney-beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick over and wash the kidney beans.

  2. If desired, soak the beans overnight for quicker cooking.

Cook the beans

  1. Put the beans in a pot with 1 quart of cold water and heat gradually.

  2. When boiling, pour in ½ cup of cold water to check the boiling.

  3. Every 15 minutes, add another ½ cup of cold water and cook gently until tender.

Season and serve

  1. For extra flavor, fry a chopped onion in the butter before adding it to the beans.

  2. Drain the beans and add 2 tablespoons of butter, ½ teaspoon of salt, and ¼ teaspoon of pepper.

  3. Heat the mixture and serve hot.

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. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  2. Kidney beans + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 recipes

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

  3. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Kidney beans + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together186 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried red kidney beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the stew once cooked until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the cooked beans.

The step that matters

Cooking gently until tender. Beans need a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil, which can break them apart. Adding water in measured amounts keeps the level up so the beans stay submerged and cook evenly until soft.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (kidney beans, butter, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Tomatofits about as well
  4. Onionthe original

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