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Bean Soup

A preserved bean soup made with beans, parsnips, onions, carrots, milk, and butter, canned in sterilized jars.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsnip and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,097 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. Drain the beans and add 4 quarts of fresh water.

  3. Chop the parsnips, onions, and carrots, then add them to the pot.

  4. Boil for 2 hours or until the skins slip from the beans.

Make and preserve the soup

  1. Run the mixture through a sieve and return the liquid to the pot.

  2. Reheat to boiling point.

  3. Pour into sterilized jars, filling them completely.

  4. Seal the jars with rubbers and tops, adjusting the spring.

  5. Sterilize the filled jars in a boiler for 1.5 hours.

Serve

  1. To serve, heat 2 cups of the canned bean soup with 1 cup of milk and a small lump of butter.

  2. Boil once and serve very hot.

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. Parsnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,097 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  2. Beans + parsniptop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together85 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

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

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

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

Beans
Provide the main body and thickness of the soup as they break down during long boiling.
Parsnips
Add sweetness and body to the soup as they soften.
Onions
Build savory flavor as they cook down into the soup.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color while softening into the broth.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, mellow texture when stirred into the reheated soup.

The step that matters

Sterilizing the filled jars. Sterilizing the sealed jars for the full time is what makes the soup safe to store, so the time must not be shortened.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, parsnip, carrot, pepper, milk, butter):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, parsnip, carrot, pepper, milk, 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.

More bean soup recipes

Black 138Haricot 45White 36Baked 31Turtle 22Lima 16 See all 179 →

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