Name: A Bean Pudding
Ingredients: beans; coarse sea salt; black pepper; butter

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 ↓

A Bean Pudding

Ingredients

beans
coarse sea salt
black pepper
butter

Directions

Remove the skins from the beans.
Pound the beans in a mortar.
Season with coarse sea salt and black pepper.
Add a piece of butter.
Tie the mixture lightly in a buttered and floured cloth.
Place it in boiling water and boil for 30 minutes.
Squeeze the water from the pudding cloth.
If a different shape is desired, place the cloth with the pudding into a mold, press down, and let it stand for a few minutes.
Invert the mold onto a serving dish to turn out the pudding.

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.

Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,799 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together85,593 recipes

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