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Haricots a LA Provemjale

A Provencal bean stew with anchovies, shallots, garlic, parsley, gherkins, peppercorns, sea salt, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Olive and garlic are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and 23,449 recipes mention both. Both carry linalool, which smells floral, citrus. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: fish (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. If using dried beans, soak them first.

  2. Boil the haricot beans until tender.

Make the sauce

  1. In a stew pan, heat several spoonfuls of olive oil.

  2. Add the anchovies, shallots, and bruised garlic to the pan and fry for a few minutes.

  3. Season with chopped parsley, gherkins, peppercorns, and coarse sea salt.

  4. Add the boiled beans to the pan and fry for a few more minutes.

  5. Pour a little vinegar into the pan and boil.

Serve

  1. Pour the vinegar over the beans before serving.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Olive + garlictop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together23,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  2. Shallot + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together3,718 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Garlic + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together9,294 recipes

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

  4. Beans + olivetop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  5. Olive + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together8,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

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 dish and, once cooked until tender, give it a soft, creamy texture.
Olive oil
Carries the aromatics and gives the beans a rich, fatty mouthfeel.
Anchovies
Melt into the oil during frying, adding a deep savoury backbone.
Garlic
Softens and mellows during frying, adding aroma and sweetness.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich oil and beans.

The step that matters

Pour the vinegar into the pan and boil. Vinegar is acidic and volatile, so boiling it briefly sharpens its flavour and mellows its harshness. Adding too much or boiling it too long can leave the dish sour and sharp.

Flavor stand-ins for the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, shallot, garlic, parsley, vinegar):

  1. Chickpeabetter flavor fit
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Sesameabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Lentilsabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, shallot, garlic, parsley, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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