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Haricot and Tomato Pie

A baked pie of butter beans, tomatoes, onion, tapioca, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Haricot and Tomato Pie

Oven, in the book's wordsA brisk oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Soak the tapioca overnight in cold water to allow it to swell.

  2. Boil the butter beans with the onion until soft.

Assemble and bake

  1. In a pie dish, layer the beans, tomatoes, and tapioca alternately.

  2. Add small pieces of butter on each layer until the dish is full.

  3. Make your preferred pie crust.

  4. Cover the dish with the crust.

  5. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven.

  6. Serve with a little of the bean liquid as a 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. Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  4. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  5. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Butter beans
Form the bulk of the filling and give it a soft, starchy body.
Tapioca
Swells when soaked and thickens the filling as it cooks.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture to the layers as it melts during baking.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture to the filling.
Onion
Adds savoury aroma and sweetness as it softens in the cooking water.

The step that matters

Soak the tapioca overnight. Tapioca must swell fully before baking, because dry pearls would stay hard and fail to thicken the filling properly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beans, tomato, 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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