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Salad

Dry White Bean Salad

A salad of cooked white beans, onions, herbs, and seasonings, garnished with beets and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley 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 ↓

Dry White Bean Salad

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Drain the cooked beans and let them cool.

  2. Parboil the chopped onions for 2 minutes, then immerse in cold water and press dry with a napkin.

Combine and serve

  1. In a salad bowl, combine the beans, onions, salt, pepper, vinegar, and oil.

  2. Add the chopped parsley or chives and mix everything well.

  3. Garnish with beets and eggs before serving.

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 + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  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

White beans
Form the bulk of the salad and provide its creamy, substantial texture.
Onions
Add sharp, savory flavour; parboiling mellows their bite.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the oil.
Oil
Adds fat and smoothness, carrying flavour through the beans.

The step that matters

Pressing the parboiled onions dry. Parboiling softens the onions' sharp bite, and cold water stops them cooking further. Excess water left on them would dilute the dressing and make the salad watery, so they should be patted well dry before mixing.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg):

  1. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, pepper, vinegar, parsley, egg. 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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