Skip to main content
Main

Cottage-cheese Loaf with Beans or Peas

A loaf made of cottage cheese, beans or peas, bread crumbs, and seasonings, baked until golden.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,159 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Cottage-cheese Loaf with Beans or Peas

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

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

  2. Mash larger beans or process them through a meat chopper.

  3. In a bowl, mix the beans, cottage cheese, bread crumbs, and seasoning until well combined.

  4. Form the mixture into a stiff roll, as the cheese will soften when heated.

Bake and serve

  1. Place the roll in a baking dish and baste occasionally with savory fat.

  2. Bake until heated through and golden brown.

  3. Serve with tomato sauce or your choice of 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 + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  2. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 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. Cottage cheese + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together72 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl caproate (fruity, apple peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Cottage cheese
Provides soft, moist body and a creamy, tender crumb when heated.
Cooked beans
Form the bulk of the loaf, giving substance and a hearty texture.
Dry bread crumbs
Absorb moisture and help the mixture hold together as a loaf.
Savory fat
Basting adds richness and promotes browning on the outside of the loaf.

The step that matters

Form a stiff roll. Cottage cheese softens when heated, so a firmly formed, stiff roll helps the loaf hold its shape in the oven instead of spreading or collapsing.

Swap the celery

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

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Cuminfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against cottage cheese, onion, beans, bread, 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.

You might also like

Brown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesMacaroni and CheeseMacaroni and Cheese102 recipesWhite BreadWhite Bread80 recipes