Name: Bangers & Beans in a Pan
Yield: Serves 4, but easily doubled or trebled
Ingredients: 1 tbsp vegetable oil; 454g packet good quality sausages each sausage chopped into three; 1 small onion , chopped; 3 carrots , chopped into thick slices; 4 celery sticks, washed, if gritty, and sliced into chunks (finely chop the leaves if there are any); 2 x 410g cans mixed pulses (or other beans), drained and rinsed under the cold tap; 400ml hot chicken or vegetable stock; 1-2 tbsp Dijon mustard (or 2 tsp ready-made English mustard), depending on how fiery you want it; a small handful of fresh parsley , chopped; crusty bread , to serve

Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

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.

Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,053 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Celery + mustardtop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,169 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together852 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

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (carrot, celery, beans, chicken, mustard, parsley, bread):

Lettucefits better
Leekfits better
Turnipfits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against carrot, celery, beans, chicken, mustard, parsley, bread. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Sausage	100g cooked	301
Pork	100g cooked	242
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Olive Oil	1 tbsp (14g)	119
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Carrot	1 medium (61g)	25
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Mustard	1 tsp (5g) yellow	3
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Pulses	not in our table	0
Bean	not in our table	0

Bangers & Beans in a Pan