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Boston Roast

A baked casserole of mashed kidney beans, cottage cheese, and breadcrumbs, served with tomato sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Boston Roast

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

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

Prepare the mixture

  1. Preheat the oven to 350°F (175°C).

  2. Mash the beans or grind them using a meat grinder.

  3. Mix in the cottage cheese and enough bread crumbs to form a stiff roll.

  4. Place the mixture in a baking dish.

  5. Optionally, flavor with chopped onions cooked in butter until tender.

Bake and serve

  1. Baste occasionally with butter or fat and water while baking.

  2. Serve with 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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

  3. Bread + tomatotop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,013 recipes

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

  4. Cottage cheese + buttertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together376 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

  5. Kidney beans + tomatotop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together821 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

Kidney beans
Provide the bulk and body of the roll, holding its shape once mashed.
Cottage cheese
Adds moisture and soft, creamy richness to the mixture.
Bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and bind the mixture so it holds a stiff roll shape.
Butter or other fat
Adds richness and helps the surface brown while baking.

The step that matters

Baste occasionally while baking. Basting with fat and water keeps the surface from drying out and helps it brown evenly. Too little liquid during a long bake can leave the outside dry and the interior crumbly.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (kidney beans, cottage cheese, bread, butter, tomato, sauce):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Onionthe original
  3. Potatofits about as well
  4. Cucumberfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against kidney beans, cottage cheese, bread, butter, tomato, 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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