Name: Bean Salad, with Aspio Jelly, Gebman Style
Ingredients: 2 pounds dry white beans; coarse sea salt; pepper; oil; vinegar; finely-chopped parsley or chives; Mayonnaise dressing; Aspic jelly

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 ↓

Bean Salad, with Aspio Jelly, Gebman Style

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the beans until tender, then let them cool in their broth.
Select the best beans to decorate a Charlotte mold, splitting half of them in halves.
Drain the remaining beans and place them in a bowl.
Season the beans with pepper, salt, oil, and vinegar.
Add the chopped parsley or chives and a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise dressing.
Mix everything well and fill the center of the mold.
Smooth the top and set aside to firm up.

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 + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,376 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together6,477 recipes

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