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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked beans, onions, celery, and seasonings, finished with butter and cornstarch.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Mustard and celery are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,169 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight, then drain and add cold water.

Cook the soup

  1. Slice the onion and cook it in 1½ tablespoons of butter for 5 minutes.

  2. Add the cooked onion and chopped celery to the beans.

  3. Simmer for 3 to 4 hours, adding more water as needed until the beans are soft.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a sieve and reheat to boiling point.

  2. Add seasoning and bind with the remaining butter and cornstarch cooked together.

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. Mustard + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,169 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  2. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  5. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the body of the soup, softening during long simmering and thickening the liquid as they break down.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavour from the onion and helping bind the finished soup.
Cornstarch
Thickens the soup when cooked, giving it a smooth, binding body.
Onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma when softened gently in butter before going into the soup.
Celery
Contributes aroma and a fresh, vegetal flavour as it cooks into the soup base.

The step that matters

Bind with butter and cornstarch cooked together. Cornstarch must be cooked to thicken properly. Cooking it with butter first, then adding it to the hot soup, helps it disperse and thicken smoothly rather than forming lumps.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, pepper, mustard, celery, butter):

  1. Lettucefits better
  2. Chivefits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, mustard, celery, butter. 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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