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To Boil White Haricot Beans

A boiled white haricot bean dish seasoned with onion, butter, pepper, parsley, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

To Boil White Haricot Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans and soak them in cold water for 12 hours.

Cook the beans

  1. In a clean saucepan, combine the soaked beans, 2 quarts of cold water, the onion, and a small piece of butter.

  2. Boil slowly for about 3 hours.

  3. Drain the beans and remove the onion.

Season and serve

  1. Add salt, pepper, chopped parsley, and 2 oz of butter.

  2. Place over the fire and stir for a few minutes until thoroughly hot.

  3. Serve in a vegetable 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. 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

White haricot beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming soft and tender as they simmer slowly in water.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished beans.
Onion
Flavors the cooking water as it simmers with the beans, then is removed.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for about 3 hours. A gentle simmer softens the beans evenly while keeping their skins intact. A hard, rapid boil can break them apart and leave the centers floury or uneven.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Lentilsfits about as well

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