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Turtle Soup From Beans

A bean-based soup flavored with thyme, savory, parsley, butter, and egg yolks, finished with lemon and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and summer savory match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 214 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turtle Soup From Beans

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the black beans overnight.

  2. Boil the beans in 1 gallon of water.

  3. Strain the beans through a colander and return the bean flour to the pot.

Season and finish

  1. Tie thyme, summer savory, and parsley in a thin cloth and add to the pot.

  2. Add cold butter, salt, and pepper to the mixture.

  3. Add the quartered egg yolks, forcemeat balls, sliced lemon, and white wine just before serving.

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. Thyme + summer savorytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Summer savory + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Form the thick body of the soup as they break down and release starch when boiled.
Cold butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel as it emulsifies into the hot liquid.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the heavy, earthy bean base.
Lemon
Contributes sharp acidity and fresh aroma that balance the soup's richness.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add a creamy, rich texture and mild savory flavor when stirred through the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cold butter. Whisking cold butter into hot soup off the heat creates a smooth, emulsified body; if the soup is boiling hard, the butter can separate and leave the texture greasy.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (thyme, summer savory, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, lemon):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Lentilsfits about as well
  3. Chickpeafits about as well
  4. Walnutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, summer savory, parsley, butter, pepper, egg, lemon. 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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