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Brown Bean Soup

A hearty soup of soaked brown beans with leeks, carrot, potato, Worcestershire sauce, and optional bouillon, simmered until tender.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Brown Bean Soup

Time1½ hours

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Put the beans in a pan with the water and bay leaf, bring to the boil.

  2. Boil rapidly for 10 minutes, then simmer for 1½ hours or until the beans are tender. Add the leeks, carrot, potato, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper, and simmer for another 30 minutes.

  3. Taste the soup and add a bouillon cube if desired.

  4. You can puree the soup at this point, but it is nicest when you just mash the beans and potatoes a bit so it thickens. Add the celery leaves 5 minutes before serving.

Serve

  1. Add optional fillings such as cooked beef or pork, tiny meatballs, slices of smoked sausage, hot sauce, or ketchup sauce.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

253Calories
8 gProtein
1 gFat
57 gCarbs

Counts 8 of 10 ingredients. The other 2 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 8 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Potato1 medium (173g) baked161
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Carrot1 medium (61g)25
Soy Sauce1 tbsp (15ml)9
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Celery1 stalk (40g)6
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
Salt1 tsp (6g)0
Beannot in our table0
Waternot in our table0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Leek + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together51 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  4. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Brown beans
Provide the main body of the soup and, once mashed, help it thicken.
Potato
Breaks down partly when mashed, adding body and thickness to the soup.
Leeks
Add a mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the soup base.
Carrot
Adds gentle sweetness and color while holding its shape in the simmer.

The step that matters

Mashing the beans and potatoes. Mashing releases starch from the beans and potato into the liquid, which thickens the soup. Pureeing or over-mashing can make it gluey, so mash only lightly.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, leek, carrot, sauce, pepper, celery):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Potatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, leek, carrot, sauce, pepper, celery. 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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