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Brown Haricot Soup

A bean soup made with brown haricot beans, onions, carrots, milk powder, flour, suet dumplings, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and carrot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,443 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Brown Haricot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight, then wash them.

  2. Put the beans in a pan with water and bring to a boil.

  3. If possible, pass the beans through a sieve and return them to the pan.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the chopped carrots and onions, and cook until tender.

  2. Half an hour before serving, add the suet dumplings.

  3. A few minutes before serving, stir in the milk.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Brown haricot beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and a soft texture when cooked until tender.
Milk powder
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup and gives it body.

The step that matters

Passing the beans through a sieve. Pushing the cooked beans through a sieve breaks them into a smooth purée that thickens the liquid. Skipping this leaves the soup thin and grainy in texture.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, carrot, milk powder, 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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