Name: Landmarks Club Cook Book
Ingredients: one pint of black beans to soak over night in two quarts of cold water; two quarts of cold water; two quarts of fresh water; four stalks of celery in a tablespoonful of butter; three tablespoon fuls of worcestershire sauce; one pound to a quart of water; two teaspoons flour; two tablespoons tomato catsup; a tablespoonful of butter; a tablespoon of flour; a quart of water; a pinch of sago; a tablespoon of vinegar; half onion; half glass of good sherry wine; one chicken; two stocks to- gether; one small stalk of celery; three bay leaves; one small bunch of parsley; one egg; twelve white cloves; five meat balls made of meat chopped fine; two lemons; salt; pepper; parsley; vinegar

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. 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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Celery + tomatotop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,159 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,518 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 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

Black beans: Become tender and give the soup its body and earthy base.
Flour: Blended with butter, it thickens the soup slightly.
Butter: Carries the frying of onion and celery, adding richness and flavour.
Celery: Fried first to build aromatic flavour into the soup.
Sherry wine: Added at the end to brighten the soup with a rounded, fruity aroma.

The step that matters

Blend the flour with butter before stirring it in. Flour stirred in raw clumps and stays lumpy; mixing it smoothly with fat first lets it disperse evenly so it thickens the soup without lumps.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, sauce, flour, tomato, vinegar, onion):

Capersfits better
Garlicfits better
Cuminfits better
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, sauce, flour, tomato, vinegar, onion. 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
Flour	1 cup (125g) all-purpose	455
Chicken	100g cooked	165
Black Bean	1/2 cup canned (120g) drained	114
Butter	1 tbsp (14g)	102
Egg	1 large egg (50g)	78
Onion	1 medium (110g)	44
Wine	2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)	25
Tomato	1 medium (123g)	22
Lemon	juice of 1 lemon (48ml)	12
Soy Sauce	1 tbsp (15ml)	9
Clove	1 tsp ground (2g)	7
Celery	1 stalk (40g)	6
Black Pepper	1 tsp ground (2.3g)	6
Vinegar	1 tbsp (15ml) distilled	3
Bay Leaf	1 leaf (0.6g)	2
Parsley	1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)	1
Salt	1 tsp (6g)	0
Water	not in our table	0
Meat	not in our table	0

Landmarks Club Cook Book