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Dried Beans

A simple boiled bean dish seasoned with salt, pepper, butter, and optional sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dried Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the dried beans and place them in a pot with a liberal supply of cold water.

  2. Bring the pot to a boil.

  3. Pour off the water.

Cook

  1. Add enough cold water to barely cover the beans and season lightly with coarse sea salt.

  2. Cook gently until the beans are very tender but not falling apart.

Season and serve

  1. Season with black pepper and butter, or serve with white or brown sauce.

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

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

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Dried beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender and creamy as they cook.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished beans.

The step that matters

Cook gently until the beans are very tender but not falling apart.. Beans cooked at a hard boil can burst and break down, while gentle simmering lets the skins soften and the interiors become tender and intact.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, butter, 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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