Skip to main content
Main

Brown Haricot Soup

A hearty bean soup made with brown beans, onions, carrots, and flavored with milk powder, suet dumplings, and optional seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

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.

  2. Wash the beans.

  3. Place the beans in a pan with water.

  4. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  5. Pass the beans through a sieve.

  6. Return the sieved beans to the pan.

Make the soup

  1. Add the chopped carrots and onions.

  2. Cook until all are tender.

  3. Add the suet dumplings.

  4. Add the milk powder and flavourings.

  5. Mix the flour with a little cold water to form a smooth paste.

  6. Add the flour paste to the soup.

  7. Stir quickly until the soup boils.

  8. Boil for three more minutes.

  9. Season the soup and serve.

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 beans
Form the main body of the soup; sieving them thickens it and gives a smooth texture.
Onions
Soften and turn sweet as they cook, adding depth to the soup's aroma.
Carrots
Soften and add natural sweetness and body to the soup.
Flour
Starch swells when mixed with liquid and boiled, thickening the soup.
Milk powder
Adds milk solids for a richer, creamier body and flavour.

The step that matters

Adding the flour paste. Flour added without first being smoothed in cold water forms lumps that will not disperse. Stirring quickly as the soup comes to the boil lets the starch disperse and swell evenly, thickening the soup smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

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

You might also like

Carrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesGerman Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes