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Dried Haricot Beans

A simple boiled bean dish seasoned with salt, butter, pepper, and optional fried bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Dried Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried haricot beans in water for at least 12 hours.

  2. Drain and place the beans in a pot with cold water and salt.

Cook and serve

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer until soft.

  2. Serve with a pat of butter, black pepper, and salt.

  3. Optionally, add fried diced bacon.

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

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

  2. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 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

Haricot beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and creamy after soaking and simmering.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel when melted into the hot beans.
Bacon
Adds savoury, smoky fat and browned flavour when included.

The step that matters

Simmer until soft. Dried beans need a gentle, sustained simmer to soften fully. Rapid boiling can break the skins and leave the beans unevenly cooked, while stopping early leaves them firm inside.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Almondfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against 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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