Name: Dry White Bean Salad
Ingredients: 1 quart cooked white beans; 2 onions, finely chopped; Salt, to taste; Pepper, to taste; Vinegar, to taste; Olive oil, to taste; Chopped parsley or chives, to taste; Beets, for garnish; Hard-boiled eggs, for garnish

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

Drain the cooked beans and let them cool.
Parboil the chopped onions for 2 minutes, then immerse in cold water and press dry with a napkin.

Combine and serve

In a salad bowl, combine the beans, onions, salt, pepper, vinegar, oil, and parsley or chives, then mix everything well together.
Garnish with sliced beets and hard-boiled 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.

Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beans + olivetop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,470 recipes

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

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together9,649 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked white beans: Form the bulk of the salad and provide a soft, creamy texture.
Onions: Add sharp, pungent flavour; parboiling mellows their bite.
Olive oil: Adds fat and smooth richness that carries the flavour of the dressing.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that brightens the beans and balances the oil.

The step that matters

Parboiling and drying the onions. Parboiling for only 2 minutes softens the harsh sulphur compounds in raw onion, and cold water stops the cooking. Pressing them dry matters because excess water would dilute the vinegar and oil dressing and make the salad watery.

Swap the onion

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

Capsicumfits better
Spinachfits better
Tomatofits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, vinegar, olive, 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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Dry White Bean Salad