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Savoury Butter Beans

Savory butter beans baked with onions, bacon, salt, pepper, and baking soda.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Savoury Butter Beans

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the butter beans overnight in cold water with a small piece of baking soda.

  2. Drain the beans and place them in fresh water.

  3. Boil for 2.5 hours, adding more water as needed to keep them covered.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a bowl, mix the drained beans with the chopped onions and bacon strips.

  2. Transfer the mixture to a pie dish, season with salt and pepper, and cover with water.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) for 2 hours, stirring occasionally.

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. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + beanstop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter beans
Provide the starchy body of the dish, softening into a creamy texture during long cooking.
Bacon
Renders fat into the dish, adding savoriness and flavor that carries through the beans.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and release their flavor into the cooking liquid.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soaking water, helping the bean skins soften during soaking and boiling.

The step that matters

Keep the beans covered while boiling. Beans exposed to air during a long boil can dry out and cook unevenly, and the skins may toughen. Adding water as needed keeps them submerged so they cook evenly and stay tender.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, 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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