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Stking-bean Soup

A soup made from string beans, flour, fat, onion, salt, pepper, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Stking-bean Soup

2 quarts

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Cook the string beans in minimal water until tender, then drain and rub through a sieve.

  2. Combine the bean liquid and milk to make 2 quarts.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the fat, add the flour, and cook for 1-2 minutes.

  2. Stir in the liquid and cook until thickened.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Optionally, cut some beans into small pieces and add to the soup.

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. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the body and flavour of the soup once puréed through a sieve.
Flour
Thickens the liquid into a smooth, creamy soup when cooked with the fat.
Fat
Carries the flour and cooks it into a roux, adding richness.
Milk
Adds creaminess and body, and mellows the soup's flavour.

The step that matters

Cook the flour and fat for 1-2 minutes before adding the liquid. Cooking the fat and flour together, a roux, removes the raw starchy taste and lets the flour thicken evenly. Adding liquid too early can leave lumps and a pasty flavour.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Okrafits better
  4. Onionthe original

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