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Beans and Tomatoes

A simple bean stew thickened with roux and tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Beans and Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Strain the beans and reserve the cooking liquid.

  2. In a saucepan, melt the butter and mix in the flour to create a roux.

  3. Gradually add the reserved cooking liquid, stirring until thickened.

  4. Stir in the tomato sauce and bring to a boil.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the beans and heat until hot, then serve immediately.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Tomato + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,469 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Flour and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the body of the dish as the main ingredient, absorbing the sauce as they heat.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth sauce when cooked with butter as a roux.
Butter
Fat that cooks with the flour to form the roux and adds richness to the sauce.
Cooking liquid
Adds moisture and bean flavour to the sauce, thickened by the roux.
Tomato sauce
Adds acidity and tomato flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Gradually add the reserved cooking liquid, stirring until thickened. Adding liquid all at once to a roux can cause lumps. Adding it slowly while stirring lets the starch in the flour swell evenly, producing a smooth sauce.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Welsh onionfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, flour, butter, sauce. 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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