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Kidney Beans

A pickled kidney bean dish preserved in a brine of whey, vinegar, spices, and dill.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Dill and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,630 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Kidney Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Scald the cheese whey.

  2. Make a brine strong enough to float an egg.

  3. Add the fresh kidney beans to the whey brine.

  4. Let the beans sit until they turn bright yellow.

  5. Drain the beans through a sieve.

  6. Dry the beans with a coarse cloth.

Pickle and colour

  1. Place the beans in a brass pan.

  2. Cover the beans with alegar.

  3. Add dill to the beans.

  4. Cover tightly, sealing the edges with paper to trap steam.

  5. Set the pan over low heat until the beans turn green.

  6. Remove the beans from the pickle.

Jar and finish

  1. Place the beans in a jar.

  2. Boil fresh alegar with black pepper, Jamaica pepper, and sliced ginger.

  3. Add the boiled alegar to the jar with the beans.

  4. Ensure the beans are well covered.

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. Dill + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,630 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + gingertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,800 recipes

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

  3. Dill + gingertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together87 recipes

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

  4. Dill + vinegartop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together659 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Cheese + vinegartop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).

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

What each ingredient does

Young kidney beans
Are the main vegetable, becoming tender and firm as they pickle in the vinegar.
Alegar (good vinegar)
Provides the acidity that preserves the beans and gives the pickle its sharp flavour.
Cheese whey
Used in the brine to help the beans change colour during soaking.
Dill
Adds a fresh herbal aroma to the pickled beans.

The step that matters

Set the pan over low heat until the beans turn green.. Gentle heat changes the bean colour without cooking them through. Higher heat or longer cooking can turn them dull and soft, and the bright colour is lost.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cheese, whey, dill, vinegar, pepper, ginger):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Sesamefits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cheese, whey, dill, vinegar, pepper, ginger. 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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