Why it works: Beans and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,017 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Haricot Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Soak the haricot beans in cold water for 12 hours.
Combine the soaked beans with cold water and ½ ounce of coarse sea salt in a pan.
Bring the mixture to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.
Make the onion sauce
Blanch the onions, then dry the blanched onions and chop them.
Combine the onions, sugar, butter, and a pinch of salt in a saucepan and cook until the onions are soft.
Add the cooked rice to the saucepan.
Moisten the mixture with milk or water.
Stir occasionally and cook slowly until well combined.
Add the grated cheese and mix well.
Pass the mixture through a sieve.
Combine the sieved mixture with the white sauce.
Serve
Pour the sauce over the cooked beans.
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.
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Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,017 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
-
Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
-
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,242 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Rice + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
-
Butter + cheesetop 8% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,962 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Haricot beans
- Provide the main body and starchy, creamy texture of the dish.
- Onions
- Add sweetness and savoury flavour as they soften and brown slowly.
- Butter
- Adds richness and carries flavour when cooking the onions.
- Rice
- Thickens the mixture and gives it body once cooked and sieved.
- White sauce
- Adds moisture and a smooth, rich coating over the beans.
The step that matters
Cook the onions until soft and sieve the mixture. Cooking the onions slowly softens them fully so they blend smoothly; under-cooked onions leave a grainy texture that the sieve cannot fully remove.
Swap the onion
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, sugar, butter, rice, milk, cheese, sauce):
- Capsicumfits better
- Tomatofits better
- Potatofits better
- Onionthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, sugar, butter, rice, milk, cheese, sauce. 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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