Why it works: Beans and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,134 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓
Bean Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the beans
Soak a quart of beans overnight.
In the morning, pour off the water, add some fresh water, and set on the fire until the hulls will easily slip off.
Throw the beans into cold water, rub well, and the hulls will rise to the top, when they may be removed.
Allow two quarts of water to a quart of beans.
Cook and season
Boil until the beans are quite soft, then mash.
A piece of beef, mutton, or pork may be boiled with the beans to season them.
If you do not use meat, add some butter and flour rubbed together.
Salt and pepper should be boiled in the soup.
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. See the original page.
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.
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Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 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
- Beans
- Form the body of the soup; when boiled soft and mashed they thicken it.
- Beef
- Adds savoury flavour to the beans while they cook.
- Butter and flour (in the method)
- Enrich the soup and thicken it when no meat is used.
The step that matters
Removing the hulls. Hulls that stay on the beans can leave the soup tough and gritty, so they must be loosened by soaking and simmering and then rubbed off in cold water until they float to the top.
“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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