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Haricot Beans

A boiled bean dish flavored with butter, parsley, milk, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water with a pinch of baking soda for 12 hours.

  2. Drain the beans.

Cook the beans

  1. Place the beans in a pan with cold water and boil gently for 3.5 hours.

  2. Drain the beans again.

Finish and serve

  1. Combine butter, parsley, salt, and pepper.

  2. Add the milk and beans.

  3. Cook for an additional 15 minutes.

  4. Transfer to a hot dish.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 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. Parsley + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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 dish; long soaking and boiling soften their dense starchy flesh.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the beans into a softer, saucier texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel.
Parsley
Contributes fresh, herbal aroma and a little color.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans gently for 3.5 hours. Gentle simmering softens the beans evenly without breaking their skins. A hard, rapid boil can split them and leave some pieces mushy while others stay firm.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, milk, pepper, butter. 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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