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Haricot Bean Omelet

A baked omelet made with mashed haricot beans, bread crumbs, eggs, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,470 recipes. Both carry trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Omelet

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderately hot oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a moderately hot oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the haricot beans in cold water for several hours.

  2. Boil the beans in fresh water until soft.

  3. Mash the beans with the milk and strain through a fine colander.

Make the omelet

  1. Mix in the bread crumbs, chopped parsley, beaten eggs, olive oil, salt, and pepper.

  2. Pour the mixture into a buttered dish.

Bake and serve

  1. Bake for about 1 hour at 350°F (175°C).

  2. Serve with brown sauce.

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

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

  2. Bread + olivetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,091 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + milktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  5. Olive + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together30,263 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

Haricot beans
Form the bulk of the omelet and give it a soft, starchy body.
Eggs
Set during baking to bind the mixture into a firm, sliceable omelet.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and add body so the omelet holds together.
Milk
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the mashed beans for mixing.
Olive oil
Adds fat, which keeps the omelet moist and tender as it bakes.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until soft. Beans that are not fully tender stay grainy and resist mashing, so the omelet ends up with lumps and uneven texture. Soaking first helps them cook through evenly.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, milk, olive, pepper):

  1. Peasfits about as well
  2. Walnutfits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Chickpeafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, milk, olive, 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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