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Brittany Beans

A buttery, lightly seasoned bean dish with sautéed onions and stock.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Brittany Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the onions

  1. Scald and drain the sliced onions.

  2. Fry the onions in butter until pale brown.

Make the stew

  1. Sprinkle flour, pepper, and salt over the onions and toss for 5 minutes.

  2. Add stock and stew for about 20 minutes, stirring frequently.

  3. Add well-cooked haricot beans and butter, toss together, and serve.

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. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Flour + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Onions
Soften and sweeten as they fry, forming the base flavor of the dish.
Flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, lightly bodied sauce as it cooks.
Stock
Forms the liquid that the beans and onions simmer in, carrying flavor.
Haricot beans
Provide the main body and starchy texture of the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and aroma to the frying onions and finished beans.

The step that matters

Frying the onions until pale brown. Browning builds sweetness and flavor through caramelization, but over-browning turns onions bitter. Stop at pale brown so the dish stays mild and sweet.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, pepper, beans. 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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