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Soup

Black Bean and Kafir Corn

A soup made with black beans, kafir corn, tomatoes, oats, and flour, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Black Bean and Kafir Corn

1 quart of soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the black beans overnight, then drain.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the black beans, kafir corn, tomatoes, oats, and flour.

  2. Add salt, pepper, and enough water to make 1 quart of soup.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer until the beans are tender.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Corn + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,099 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  5. Beans + oatstop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together84 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans,trans-2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Provide the main body and protein-rich bulk of the soup as they soften during simmering.
Kafir corn
Adds grain bulk and a hearty, thickening body to the soup as it cooks.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, giving the soup a fresher, brighter flavour.
Oats
Help thicken the soup and add a mild, creamy body as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the soup broth, giving it a smoother, more substantial texture.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are tender. Dried beans contain compounds that must be fully cooked out, and they soften slowly at a gentle simmer. Stopping early leaves them firm and hard to digest, while a hard boil can break them apart.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, corn, oats, flour, pepper):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, corn, oats, flour, 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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