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Beans, Curried

A slow‑cooked bean stew flavored with curry, carrot, apple, onion, and served with boiled rice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and rice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,017 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Beans, Curried

Oven, in the book's wordsA slow oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a slow oven”. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Prepare the beans

  1. Cook the beans in a slow oven at 300°F (150°C) with water until soft.

Make the sauce

  1. Grate or chop the carrot, apple, and onion very fine.

  2. Heat the oil or butter in a pan, add the vegetables, and fry for about 5 minutes.

  3. Stir in the flour and curry powder, then add the water or the liquid from the beans.

  4. Boil and thicken the stew, then add the beans and heat thoroughly.

Serve

  1. Serve with a border of boiled rice, or press the rice into a mold and pour the beans around it.

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 + ricetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,017 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Carrot + ricetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

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

Haricot beans
Form the bulk of the dish and soften into a tender, substantial base.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a stew-like sauce.
Curry powder
Provides the main spiced flavour of the sauce.
Onion
Softens while frying to build savoury sweetness and body in the sauce.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness and softness that balances the curry spices.

The step that matters

Frying the flour and curry powder into the vegetables. Stirring the flour and curry powder into the hot fat before adding liquid lets the spices bloom and the flour cook out, which avoids a raw, pasty taste and lumps when the liquid goes in.

Swap the apple

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, carrot, onion, butter, flour, rice):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Limefits better
  4. Applethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, onion, butter, flour, rice. 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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