Name: Savoury Haricot Beans
Ingredients: ½ lb haricot beans; 2 tablespoons butter; 1 egg yolk; 1 oz Cheddar cheese, grated; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley; Cayenne pepper, to taste; Coarse sea salt, to taste; A little cream

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 ↓

Savoury Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

Soak the beans overnight in plenty of cold water.
Rinse the beans and place them in a pan with cold water and salt.
Boil gently for 2 to 3 hours until tender.
Drain the beans and remove the skins.

Make and serve

Melt the butter in a pan.
Add the beans, egg yolk, cheese, parsley, cayenne, salt, and cream.
Shake over the heat until the beans are well coated, without boiling.
Dish and garnish with fried bread.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 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).
Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,516 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Butter + cheddar cheesetop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,436 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans: Form the main body of the dish and absorb the buttery coating.
Butter: Adds richness and a smooth, glossy coating to the beans.
Egg yolk: Thickens the coating and helps bind it to the beans as they heat.
Cheddar cheese: Adds savory flavour and helps the coating turn creamy when melted.
Cream: Adds moisture and softness to the coating.

The step that matters

Shake over the heat without boiling. Egg yolk thickens when heated but scrambles if it boils, leaving a grainy coating instead of a smooth one. Gentle heat keeps the sauce silky while it clings to the beans.

Swap the beans

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

Beansthe original
Walnutfits about as well
Almondfits about as well
Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, cheddar cheese, parsley, pepper, cream. 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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Cheese Omelette31 recipes

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Savoury Haricot Beans