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Soy Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with ham hock, salt pork, soy beans, onions, red pepper, salt, water, and vinegar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion 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 ↓

Soy Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the ham hock, salt pork, and water in a pot until 2 quarts of broth is produced.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped onions, red pepper, and salt.

  2. If desired, run the soy beans through a sieve or leave them whole.

  3. Simmer until all ingredients are thoroughly cooked.

  4. Stir in the vinegar 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. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  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. Pork + beanstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 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

Soy beans
Provide the main body and protein-rich texture of the soup.
Ham hock
Releases savory flavor and fat into the broth as it boils.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory depth to the broth.
Vinegar
Adds a sharp acidity that brightens the finished soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until all ingredients are thoroughly cooked. Dried soy beans have tough skins and dense starch, so they need long, gentle simmering to soften fully. Stopping early leaves them firm and chalky, and a hard boil can break them apart.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Soybeanfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against ham, pork, onion, pepper, vinegar. 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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