Why it works: Kidney beans and butter work together. They rank in the top 22% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 186 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Kidney Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
String the kidney beans, slit them down the middle, and cut them across.
Soak them in saltwater.
Cook and serve
Bring a saucepan of water to a boil, add the beans with a little salt.
Cook until tender, then drain the water.
Serve on a plate with butter in a sauce-boat.
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.
-
Kidney beans + buttertop 22% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together186 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Kidney beans
- Form the main body of the dish and provide its tender, starchy texture once cooked.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, giving a smooth, savoury finish to the served beans.
The step that matters
Cook until tender, then drain the water. Beans must be cooked fully, since undercooked kidney beans stay firm and can cause digestive upset. Draining removes the cooking water so the beans hold their texture and butter coats them evenly.
“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.
More kidney beans recipes
You might also like
Beef Kidney in Gravy53 recipes
German Style String Beans7 recipes
Tomato Soup526 recipes
Brown Bread461 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.