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Dry White Beans, with Cream Bauce

A simple dish of cooked white beans simmered in cream sauce and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,787 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Dry White Beans, with Cream Bauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cook the beans according to your preferred method until tender.

  2. Drain the beans and place them in a saucepan.

Make the creamed beans

  1. Add the cream sauce and season with salt and pepper.

  2. Let the mixture simmer for ten 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. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

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

  3. Beans + saucetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  4. Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together21,449 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Beans + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,341 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Dry white beans
Provide the main body and starchy, soft texture of the dish once cooked.
Cream sauce
Adds richness and moisture, coating the beans and giving a creamy texture.

The step that matters

Simmering the beans in the cream sauce. Simmering gently lets the beans absorb flavour and the sauce thicken slightly. Boiling hard can break the sauce or make it grainy, so keep the heat low.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (cream, sauce, pepper):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Pistachiofits about as well
  4. Cashew nutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, sauce, 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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