Name: Piquant Baked Bean Croquettes
Ingredients: 1 quart baked kidney or navy beans; 2 tablespoons grated horseradish; 2 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter; salt to taste; 1 chopped sweet pepper; a little sage or thyme (optional); sifted bread crumbs; 1 teaspoon whole baked beans; a few drops of tomato sauce

Why it works: Olive and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 15,539 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Piquant Baked Bean Croquettes

Ingredients

1 quart baked kidney or navy beans
2 tablespoons grated horseradish
2 tablespoons olive oil or melted butter
salt to taste
1 chopped sweet pepper
a little sage or thyme (optional)
sifted bread crumbs
1 teaspoon whole baked beans
a few drops of tomato sauce

Directions

Press the baked beans through a colander to make 1 quart.
Mix in the horseradish, olive oil or melted butter, salt, sweet pepper, and optional herbs.
On a platter covered with bread crumbs, place 2 tablespoons of the mixture and make a depression in the center.
Fill the depression with 1 teaspoon of whole baked beans and a few drops of tomato sauce.
Cover with another tablespoon of the mixture, shape into croquettes, and proceed to cook as per general directions.

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.

Olive + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together15,539 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + sagetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,388 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,470 recipes

Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).
Beans + sagetop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together113 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

Swap the sage

The recipe marks sage as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, horseradish, olive, pepper, bread, tomato, sauce):

Capersfits better
Garlicfits better
Cuminfits better
Sagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, horseradish, olive, pepper, bread, tomato, sauce. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.