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Salad

Dry White Bean Salad

A salad of cooked white beans, onions, parsley or chives, beets, and eggs, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dry White Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Parboil the onions for 2 minutes, then immerse in cold water and press dry with a napkin.

Make the salad

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the cooked beans, chopped onions, salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil.

  2. Add chopped parsley or chives and mix well.

  3. Garnish with beets and sliced eggs.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

White beans
Form the bulk of the salad and provide a soft, creamy texture.
Onions
Add a sharp, aromatic bite that is mellowed by parboiling.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the beans and balances the oil.
Oil
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour through the beans.
Eggs
Add protein-rich garnish with a mild, savoury flavour.

The step that matters

Parboil the onions and dry them well. Brief parboiling softens the harsh sulphur compounds in raw onion, and cold water stops the cooking. Pressing them dry keeps excess water from thinning the vinaigrette and diluting the dressing on the beans.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg):

  1. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg. 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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