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Butter Bean Pie

A savoury pie of cooked butter beans layered with parsley, butter and seasoning, under a pastry crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Butter Bean Pie

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the filling

  1. Soak the butter beans overnight, then cook in 2 quarts of boiling water for 2 hours.

  2. Strain the beans and layer them in a well-buttered pie dish with chopped parsley, butter, pepper, and salt.

  3. Repeat the layers until the dish is nearly full, then add a little stock mixed with browning sauce.

Make the pastry and bake

  1. For the pastry, rub the butter into the flour, then add baking powder and salt.

  2. Add just enough cold water to form a dough that can be rolled out.

  3. Cover with pastry and bake at 350°F (175°C) until golden brown.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter beans
Form the bulk of the filling, giving it body and a creamy, starchy texture when cooked.
Butter
Adds richness and flavour to the filling and helps make the pastry tender and flaky.
Flour
Provides the structure of the pastry dough once mixed with water.
Baking powder
Releases gas during baking so the pastry rises and becomes lighter.
Cold water
Binds the flour and butter into a dough without developing excess gluten.

The step that matters

Add just enough cold water to form a dough. Too much water develops gluten and makes the pastry tough, while cold water keeps the butter solid so the pastry stays flaky.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, pepper, sauce, flour. 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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