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Stewed Beans

A simple bean stew with butter, cream, herbs, and thickening.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Stewed Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the beans in butter and water, keeping them as white as possible.

  2. Chop the parsley and winter savory very fine.

  3. Season the chopped herbs.

Make the sauce

  1. Boil the herbs in a small quantity of the bean water mixed with cream.

  2. Add the beans.

  3. Let them stew for a few minutes.

  4. Add a lump of butter and flour to thicken the 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. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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 and absorb the buttery sauce.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps keep the beans pale while they cook.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the sauce.
Flour
Thickens the sauce so it clings to the beans.
Winter savoury
Adds a peppery, herbal aroma to the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil the beans in butter and water, keeping them as white as possible.. Boiling too hard or too long can break the beans down and discolour them. Gentle, controlled heat keeps them intact and pale, so the finished dish looks as intended.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Pistachiofits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, parsley, cream, flour, 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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