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Haricot Beans Omelet

A baked omelet made with mashed haricot beans, milk, eggs, breadcrumbs, parsley, butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 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 ↓

Haricot Beans Omelet

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the haricot beans in cold, slightly salted water for at least 6 hours or overnight.

  2. Boil the soaked beans in fresh water until perfectly soft, then mash them with the milk.

  3. Pass the mashed beans through a sieve or fine colander.

Mix and bake

  1. In a bowl, combine the mashed beans, bread crumbs, chopped parsley, beaten egg yolks and whites, melted butter, salt, and pepper.

  2. Mix thoroughly and pour into a buttered pan or enamel dish.

  3. Bake in a 300°F (150°C) oven for 45 minutes to 1 hour.

Serve

  1. Serve with a sharp 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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the bulk of the omelette and give it a soft, set body once mashed.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set on baking, giving the omelette its structure.
Milk
Adds moisture to the mashed beans, keeping the mixture soft during baking.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together while it bakes.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, contributing flavour and a tender texture.

The step that matters

Passing the mashed beans through a sieve. Sieving removes skins and lumps so the mixture becomes smooth and even. Lumps left in would bake unevenly and give a coarse, crumbly texture.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, egg, bread, 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.

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