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Bean Loaf

A baked loaf made from cooked beans, bread crumbs or cereal, onion, fat, salt, pepper, and moistened with sauce.

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

Bean Loaf

Oven, in the book's wordsA medium oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a medium oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the mixture

  1. Pass the cooked beans through a ricer.

  2. Mix in the bread crumbs or cooked cereal, chopped onion, fat, salt, and pepper.

  3. Moisten the mixture with white sauce, gravy, or tomato sauce.

Bake and serve

  1. Transfer the mixture to a greased deep bread tin.

  2. Bake in a moderate oven at 350°F (175°C) for 1 hour.

  3. Serve hot with additional tomato sauce.

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

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

  2. Beans + peppertop 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. Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Onion + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,676 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Cooked beans
Form the bulk and body of the loaf once mashed through a ricer.
Bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and help bind the mashed beans together.
Cooked cereal
Absorbs moisture and helps the loaf hold its shape.
Fat
Adds richness and keeps the loaf from drying out.
Chopped onion
Adds savoury flavour and aroma as the loaf bakes.
White sauce, gravy, or tomato sauce
Adds moisture so the loaf stays tender rather than dry.

The step that matters

Moisten the mixture. The mashed beans and crumbs need enough liquid to bind and hold together. Too dry, the loaf crumbles when sliced; too wet, it stays soft and slumps in the tin.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Tomatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, bread, pepper, sauce. 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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