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Bean Loaf

A baked loaf made from green beans, onions, walnuts, eggs, bread crumbs, salt, and summer savory.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 299 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Bean Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare

  1. Stew the green beans until tender.

  2. Cool the beans and then process them with the raw onions and walnut meat using a meat chopper.

  3. Mix all the ingredients together.

Bake

  1. Bake in a 400°F (200°C) oven for 30 minutes.

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. Onion + summer savorytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together299 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Walnut + summer savorytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Green beans + walnuttop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  4. Green beans + oniontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together334 recipes

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

  5. Meat + walnuttop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,035 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Green beans
Make up the bulk of the loaf and give it its main body and texture.
Eggs
Bind the mixture and set as the loaf bakes, holding its shape.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture from the beans and help the loaf hold together.
Onions
Add savory flavor and aroma to the loaf.
English walnuts
Add richness and a bit of crunch to the texture.

The step that matters

Cool the beans before mixing. Adding eggs to hot beans can start them setting early, which leads to an uneven texture. Letting the beans cool first keeps the eggs mixing smoothly so the loaf bakes evenly and holds together.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, meat, walnut, egg, bread, summer savory):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Mustardfits better
  4. Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, meat, walnut, egg, bread, summer savory. 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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