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Haricot Bean Pudding

A steamed pudding made from mashed green haricots, butter, egg, parsley, onion, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Haricot Bean Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the dried green haricots until soft, then mash thoroughly with a fork.

  2. Mix in the butter, salt, pepper, parsley, onion, and beaten egg until well combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Butter a plain mold and pour the mixture in.

  2. Steam for one hour.

  3. Turn out onto a dish and decorate with parsley and small sliced tomatoes.

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. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried green haricots
Form the bulk of the pudding, providing body once boiled and mashed.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, giving the mash a smoother, softer texture.
Egg
Binds the mashed beans so the pudding holds its shape when turned out.

The step that matters

Mashing the cooked haricots thoroughly. Lumps of unmashed bean will stay firm while the rest softens, giving an uneven texture. Thorough mashing breaks down the starch-rich cell walls so the mixture becomes smooth and binds evenly with the egg.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, 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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