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Beans, Curried

A stew of haricot beans cooked with carrot, apple, onion, oil or butter, flour, curry powder, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,443 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. 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.

Cook the beans

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

Make the curry

  1. Heat the oil in a pan, add the chopped vegetables, and fry for 5 minutes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Form the bulk of the stew and become soft and tender during slow cooking.
Flour
Thickens the cooking liquid into a smooth, body-rich stew.
Curry powder
Supplies the spiced aroma and flavour that define the dish.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base when fried in fat.
Apple
Adds subtle sweetness and acidity that balances the curry spices.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour and curry powder before adding liquid. Frying flour and spice briefly in fat cooks off raw flour taste and blooms the spices; adding liquid too soon can leave lumps and a dusty flavour. Stir steadily as the liquid goes in so the thickening stays smooth.

Swap the apple

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

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

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