Skip to main content
Main

Beans, Potted

Baked haricot beans mixed with breadcrumbs, cheese, butter, and spices, then pressed into pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Pepper and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Beans, Potted

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare

  1. Bake the beans in a 300°F (150°C) oven for about 1½ hours.

  2. Pound the baked beans in a mortar, gradually adding the breadcrumbs, cheese, and butter.

  3. Season with cayenne, black pepper, salt, and nutmeg to taste.

Pot and store

  1. Press the mixture into pots and top with a little melted butter if storing for several days.

  2. Store in a cool, dry place to prevent fermentation.

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. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  2. Cheese + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,962 recipes

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

  3. Beans + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together267 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

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

  5. Beans + cheesetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together741 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

Haricot beans
Form the main body of the paste once baked and pounded.
Breadcrumbs
Absorb moisture and thicken the pounded beans into a spreadable texture.
Strong cheese
Adds savory richness and a sharp, salty flavor to the paste.
Butter
Adds fat for smoothness and richness, and a protective layer when topping pots.

The step that matters

Store in a cool, dry place. Moist, lightly cooked beans can ferment or spoil at warm temperatures, so cool, dry storage and a butter seal help keep the paste safe for several days.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, cheese, butter, 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.

You might also like

Macaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesCheese MakingCheese Making50 recipesCheese FrittersCheese Fritters34 recipesCheese OmeletteCheese Omelette31 recipes