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Puree of Dry White Beans, Pioneer Style

A creamy puree made from soaked dry white beans, broth, salt pork, ham bone, onions, carrots, and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 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 ↓

Puree of Dry White Beans, Pioneer Style

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash and pick the beans, then soak them overnight in cold water.

Cook the soup

  1. Drain the beans and place them in a saucepan with fresh water, broth, salt pork (washed and parboiled for 5 minutes), ham bone, onions, and carrots.

  2. Cover and cook slowly until well cooked.

  3. Remove the pork, ham bone, and carrots, then pound the soup through a fine colander.

  4. Return the soup to the saucepan, season with salt and pepper, and add butter.

Serve

  1. Cut the pork into small pieces, fry it, and add it to the soup when serving along with fried bread crumbs.

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 + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  3. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  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

Dry white beans
Main body of the puree; cooking softens them so they can be pounded smooth.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor to the broth as it cooks.
Ham bone
Contributes smoky, savory depth to the soup as it simmers.
Butter
Stirred in at the end to add richness and a silkier mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Cook slowly until well cooked. Gentle simmering softens the dry beans fully and evenly; rapid boiling can break them unevenly and leave hard centers, so the puree won't pass smoothly through the colander.

Swap the carrot

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pork, ham, onion, pepper, butter, bread):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Carrotthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, ham, onion, pepper, butter, bread. 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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