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String Bean Soup

A creamy soup made with veal stock, butter, flour, cream, and cooked string beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make a strong stock by simmering the knuckle of veal, water, and sliced onion for at least 5 hours. Strain and refrigerate overnight to remove fat.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter and whisk in the flour. Cook for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Gradually add the hot cream to the butter-flour mixture, stirring constantly.

  3. Incorporate the bean pulp into the heated stock along with the cream mixture, cayenne, salt, and white pepper.

  4. Do not let the soup boil after combining, as it may curdle.

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. Onion + beanstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Flour + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal knuckle
Gives the stock body and rich meaty flavor as it simmers for hours.
Butter
Carries flavor and, with the flour, forms the roux that thickens the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup when cooked briefly in butter to form a roux.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the soup.
String beans
Pureed pulp gives the soup its body and fresh green vegetable flavor.

The step that matters

Do not let the soup boil after combining. Once the cream and bean pulp are added to the hot stock, boiling can cause the dairy to curdle and separate, leaving a grainy texture.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Garlicfits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, onion, butter, flour, cream, beans, pepper. 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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