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Broad Beans, with Parsley Sauce

Broad beans cooked with parsley sauce, stock, sugar, egg yolk, cream, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper 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 ↓

Broad Beans, with Parsley Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Shell the broad beans to make 2 pints.

  2. Boil the beans in salted water until nearly tender, about 10 minutes.

Stew and finish

  1. Drain the beans and place them in a stewpan with the stock, minced herbs, and sugar.

  2. Stew the beans until perfectly tender and the liquid has reduced slightly.

  3. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and add it to the beans.

  4. Heat the mixture until just simmering, then serve.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  3. Sugar + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

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

  5. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the cream and parsley sauce as it heats, giving it a smooth, rich body.
Cream
Adds fat and richness, creating a smooth, silky sauce around the beans.
Stock
Provides liquid for stewing the beans and adds savory flavour to the sauce.
Broad beans
Form the main body of the dish, becoming tender as they stew.
Sugar
Adds a touch of sweetness that balances the savory herbs and stock.

The step that matters

Heat the mixture until just simmering. Egg yolk thickens when warmed gently but can curdle or scramble if it boils, so heat only until just simmering.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (parsley, sugar, egg, cream, pepper):

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Pistachiofits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against parsley, sugar, egg, cream, pepper. 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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