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Stewed Beans

A simple stew of beans simmered with butter, parsley, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Stewed Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cover the beans with boiling water and let sit for a few minutes to remove the skins.

  2. Put the beans into a pot with water and 1 ounce of butter.

  3. Simmer gently for three hours until tender but not pulped.

  4. Drain the beans and save the liquid for stock.

Finish and serve

  1. In a stewpan, combine the beans with 2 ounces of butter, chopped parsley, and lemon juice.

  2. Heat for a few minutes and serve hot.

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 + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,474 recipes

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

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender during the long, gentle simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished beans.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour of the rich butter and beans.

The step that matters

Simmer gently for three hours until tender but not pulped. A gentle simmer softens the beans evenly, while a hard boil can break their skins and turn them mushy. Checking for tenderness keeps them whole.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, lemon. 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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