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Black Bean Puree

A savory puree of black beans blended with salt pork, onion, mustard, and butter, garnished with hard‑cooked egg and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Black Bean Puree

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the black beans overnight, then drain.

  2. Add water and cloves to the beans and cook until tender, about four hours.

  3. Pass the cooked beans through a sieve.

Make the puree

  1. In a frying pan, cook the salt pork and onion for five minutes.

  2. Add the bean puree to the pork and onion mixture.

  3. Melt the butter, then stir in the flour and mustard.

  4. Combine the butter mixture with the bean mixture and strain.

  5. Garnish with sliced hard‑cooked egg and lemon.

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. Mustard + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Clove + mustardtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,829 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Beans + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together908 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Provide the main body and bulk of the puree once cooked and sieved.
Salt pork
Adds savoury fat and rich flavour to the pork and onion base.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and with flour forms a roux to thicken the puree.
Flour
Thickens the butter mixture so the puree becomes smooth and body-rich.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens with the salt pork.

The step that matters

Combine the butter mixture with the bean mixture and strain.. Flour cooked briefly in butter forms a roux that thickens liquid smoothly; adding it to the puree and straining removes lumps and gives an even texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, clove, mustard, pork, butter, egg, onion):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Cherryfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, clove, mustard, pork, butter, egg, onion. 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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