Name: Brazilian Black Bean Soup
Yield: 4–6
Ingredients: 2 cups dried black beans; 8 cups water; 4 cloves garlic , minced; ¼ cup diced white onion; ¼ cup chopped green onion; 2 whole cloves; ½ teaspoon ground cumin; 1 tablespoon caribe or another ground hot pepper; Juice of 1 lime; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste

Why it works: Cumin and lime match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,216 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

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.

Cumin + limetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,216 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Beans + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,188 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Garlic + oniontop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together29,058 recipes

Shared aroma: furaneol (caramel, strawberry).
Garlic + cumintop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,082 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Pepper + limetop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together3,491 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans: Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they soften during long simmering.
Garlic: Adds a pungent aromatic base that mellows as it cooks in the broth.
White onion: Adds savory sweetness as it softens and dissolves into the broth.
Ground hot pepper: Provides heat that spreads through the soup as it simmers.
Cumin: Adds warm, earthy aroma that complements the beans.
Lime juice: Adds acidity that brightens the rich, starchy beans.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are fully tender. Beans only turn soft once their starch has fully gelatinised during cooking. Stopping early leaves them firm and the soup thin, since thickness comes from the beans breaking down over the full simmer.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, clove, garlic, cumin, pepper, lime):

Spinachfits better
Okrafits better
Kalefits better
Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, clove, garlic, cumin, pepper, lime. 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.

Ingredient	Portion assumed	kcal
Black Bean	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	114
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Green Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Lime	juice of 1 lime (44ml)	11
Cumin	1 tsp ground (2.1g)	8
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Garlic	1 clove (3g)	4
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0

Brazilian Black Bean Soup