Skip to main content
Main

Haricot Beans

A simple boiled haricot bean dish seasoned with onion, butter, parsley, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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 ↓

Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Soak and cook

  1. Wash the beans and soak them in cold water overnight or for at least 12 hours.

  2. Drain the beans and place them in a saucepan with enough cold water to cover.

  3. Add the onion and 1 tablespoon of salt for every 2 quarts of water.

  4. Bring to a boil, then simmer slowly for about 2.5 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove the onion and strain the beans, letting them dry in the saucepan with the lid partially off.

  2. Add the butter, parsley, and season with pepper and salt.

  3. Gently shake the beans for 1-2 minutes, then transfer to a hot dish and serve.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  5. 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
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the dish once cooked until tender.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel that coats the cooked beans.
Onion
Infuses the cooking water with savoury aroma that gently flavours the beans.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly until tender. A rolling boil can break up the bean skins and leave them mushy, while gentle simmering lets the starches soften evenly. Beans also need to be fully tender before the salt and acid are balanced, so check texture rather than relying only on the time.

Swap the beans

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

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

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

More haricot beans recipes

Boiled 16with Bacon 6with Onions 5White 4Boiled White 3Plain 3 See all 42 →

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes