Why it works: Beans and onion 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 ↓
Windsor Beans
Ingredients
Directions
Boil Windsor beans in salted water until nearly done.
Drain the beans and stew them with a little sauce, parsley, green onions, finely chopped savory, and sugar.
Once the beans are reduced, add a thickening made of the egg yolks and thick cream.
Serve with a short sauce and season properly.
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.
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Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together5,242 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,376 recipes
Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
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Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together25,843 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
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Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together43,450 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).
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Onion + creamtop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together10,827 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).
Onion and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 10,827 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
Swap the parsley
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, onion, sugar, egg, cream):
- Nutmegfits better
- Garlicfits better
- Cinnamonfits better
- Parsleythe original
Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, sugar, egg, cream. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.
More windsor beans recipes
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