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Italian White Bean Soup

A creamy soup of soaked white beans, carrots, onions, leeks, celery, stock, egg yolks, cream, peas, and croûtons.

From the Wikibooks Cookbook · 12 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 10,172 recipes mention both. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: egg, milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak beans in water for 12 hours, then drain them.

  2. Add the drained beans to a stock pot with a little salt, butter, carrot, onion, two leeks, and a stalk of celery.

  3. Cover with water, and simmer until the vegetables are well cooked.

  4. Drain the beans and vegetables, discarding the vegetables.

Make the soup

  1. Purée the beans, adding stock as necessary to get a smooth consistency.

  2. Transfer purée to a pot, and add stock to get the desired consistency.

  3. Bring to a boil, and keep hot until serving.

  4. Combine the egg yolks with the cream, and add this to the soup.

Serve

  1. Transfer the soup to a warm tureen, add some boiled green peas, and serve with fried croûtons handed separately.

Recipe from the Wikibooks Cookbook.

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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Carrot + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,310 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Beans + carrottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,441 recipes

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

  4. Onion + leektop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapmoderate
    Mentioned together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-hexanol (resin, flower).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried white beans
Provide the main body and creamy texture once puréed into the soup.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when combined with cream and added to it.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety mouthfeel to the soup.
Leeks
Add savoury aromatic flavour to the stock as the beans cook.
Onion
Adds aromatic savoury depth to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk and cream. If the soup is boiling when the egg yolks go in, they can scramble and curdle, leaving a grainy texture. Keep the soup hot but below a boil while stirring the enriched mixture in.

Flavor stand-ins for the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, carrot, onion, leek, chicken, egg):

  1. Celerythe original
  2. Garlicabout as good a flavor fit
  3. Parsleyabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Thymeabout as good a flavor fit

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, carrot, onion, leek, chicken, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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