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Bean Salad, with Aspio Jelly, German Style

A German bean salad made with boiled beans, seasoned, and topped with mayonnaise dressing containing aspic jelly.

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

Bean Salad, with Aspio Jelly, German Style

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Boil the beans until tender, then let them cool in their broth.

  2. Select the best beans for decoration, splitting half of them in halves.

Season and mould

  1. Drain the remaining beans and place them in a bowl.

  2. Season the beans with salt, pepper, olive oil, and vinegar.

  3. Add the chopped parsley or chives and a few spoonfuls of Mayonnaise dressing.

  4. Mix everything well and fill the center of a Charlotte mold.

  5. Smooth the top and set aside to firm up.

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 + olivetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,470 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  3. Olive + parsleytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,649 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Olive + vinegartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,297 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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 bulk and body of the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat and richness that carries the seasoning through the beans.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the beans and balances the richness of the dressing.
Mayonnaise dressing made with aspic jelly
Binds the beans and, as aspic, helps the salad hold its shape when set.

The step that matters

Let the salad set fully before unmoulding. Aspic jelly firms as it cools and needs time to gel. Unmoulding too early can cause the salad to collapse or tear, so it should be left to firm up completely.

Swap the beans

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

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

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