Name: Puree of Dried Beans
Ingredients: 2 cups dried beans; 1 tablespoon butter; 1 teaspoon lemon juice; ¼ teaspoon pepper; ¼ teaspoon coarse sea salt; ½ cup stock

Why it works: Lemon and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Puree of Dried Beans

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

Make the puree

Boil the dried beans until tender.
Remove the skins and mash the beans with butter, lemon juice, pepper, and salt.

Heat and serve

Place the mixture in a saucepan with stock to heat thoroughly.
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.

Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + lemontop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,474 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

Dried beans: Form the bulk of the puree, providing body and starch that thickens when cooked and mashed.
Butter: Adds fat for a smoother, richer mouthfeel and a rounder flavour.
Lemon juice: Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the earthiness of the beans.
Stock: Adds liquid so the puree loosens to a spoonable consistency while heating.

The step that matters

Boil the dried beans until tender. Beans that are undercooked stay firm and grainy and will not mash smooth. Cooking until fully soft lets the starch break down, which gives the puree its creamy texture.

Swap the beans

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

Chickpeafits better
Walnutfits about as well
Pistachiofits about as well
Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, lemon, 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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Puree of Dried Beans