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Puree of White Haricot Beans

A smooth puree made from white haricot beans, broth, butter, sugar, and cream, served with crusts.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Puree of White Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the puree

  1. Prepare the white haricot beans as you would for a puree.

  2. Add the broth to the beans.

  3. Pass the mixture through a tammy cloth.

  4. Pour the puree into a soup pot.

  5. Add more broth if the puree is too thick.

Cook and finish

  1. Heat over medium until boiling.

  2. Reduce to a gentle boil.

  3. Skim off any foam.

  4. Stir in the butter, sugar, and boiling cream.

  5. Serve with Conde crusts on a plate.

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

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

  2. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

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

  5. Beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

White haricot beans
Provide the main body and bulk of the puree once cooked and passed through a sieve.
Broth
Adds liquid and savoury flavour, thinning the puree to the desired consistency.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished puree.
Pounded sugar
Adds a light sweetness that balances the savoury beans.
Boiling cream
Adds fat and richness, giving the puree a smoother, creamier texture.

The step that matters

Skim off any foam. Foam that rises during boiling carries impurities and can cloud the flavour and texture of the puree, so removing it keeps the result clean and smooth.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sugar, cream. 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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