Name: Soup From Dried Beans or Other Legumes
Ingredients: 1 cup dried legumes; 1 quart water or soup stock; 2 tablespoons butter or savory fat; 2 tablespoons flour; Salt to taste; Optional flavorings: tomato, onion, celery tops, parsley, onion juice, celery salt, curry powder

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Soup From Dried Beans or Other Legumes

Ingredients

1 cup dried legumes
1 quart water or soup stock
2 tablespoons butter or savory fat
2 tablespoons flour
Salt to taste
Optional flavorings: tomato, onion, celery tops, parsley, onion juice, celery salt, curry powder

Directions

Prepare

Soak the dried legumes in water overnight.

Cook the soup

Drain the legumes and add the water or stock.
Cook slowly on the stove for three hours or in a fireless cooker for four to five hours until tender, renewing the water as it boils away.

Finish

Strain the soup and thicken it with the butter and flour rubbed 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.

Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,810 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,633 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + parsleytop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,398 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried legumes: Provide the main body of the soup and, once softened, most of its texture.
Butter: Adds richness and carries flavor, and when rubbed with flour it helps thicken the soup.
Flour: Thickens the soup when cooked with the fat, giving it a smoother body.

The step that matters

Cook until fully tender. Dried legumes must cook long enough to soften fully, since undercooked beans stay firm and hard to digest. Keeping the liquid topped up prevents scorching and keeps the soup at the right consistency.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, onion, celery, parsley):

Carrotfits better
Leekfits better
Chivefits better
Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, onion, celery, parsley. 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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Soup From Dried Beans or Other Legumes