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Ha-ricot Bean Omelet

A baked omelet made with haricot beans, bread crumbs, egg, butter, parsley, milk, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Ha-ricot Bean Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA rather brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a rather brisk oven”. The 400°F (200°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Pick and wash the beans, then soak them overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until soft.

Make the mixture

  1. Mash the beans with the butter.

  2. Add the bread crumbs, chopped parsley, beaten egg, and milk; season with pepper and salt.

Bake and serve

  1. Put the mixture into a buttered dish and bake for 1 hour at 400°F (200°C).

  2. Serve with brown or onion sauce.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the bulk of the omelet and give it a soft, mashable body.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and add body so the mixture holds together when baked.
Egg
Binds the mixture and sets during baking to hold its shape.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, softening the mashed beans and adding flavor.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness to the mixture while it bakes.

The step that matters

Mash the beans with the butter. Beans must be soft enough to mash smoothly; under-cooked beans stay grainy and do not bind well with the other ingredients, leaving the omelet crumbly.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Peasfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chestnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, butter, parsley, milk, 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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