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Haricot Beans

A slow‑cooked bean dish flavored with bacon, onion, salt, pepper, butter, and optional parsley.

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 ↓

Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the haricot beans overnight in cold water.

Cook

  1. Put the beans into boiling water with salt, bacon or dripping, and onion.

  2. Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours until tender.

Finish and serve

  1. Drain the beans well and add pepper, salt, and butter, then shake over the heat for 1 to 2 minutes.

  2. Sprinkle with chopped parsley before serving.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

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, becoming soft and tender after long soaking and simmering.
Fat bacon or dripping
Adds fat and savoury flavour to the cooking water as the beans simmer.
Butter
Adds richness and a glossy coating to the drained beans.
Onion
Contributes savoury aroma to the cooking liquid as it simmers.

The step that matters

Boil gently for 3 to 4 hours until tender. Beans need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. Rapid boiling can break skins and leave the beans uneven, while adding salt before cooking can toughen skins.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, pepper, butter):

  1. Garlicfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Thymefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, 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.

More haricot beans recipes

Boiled 16with Bacon 6with Onions 5White 4Boiled White 3Plain 3 See all 42 →

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