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Black Bean Soup with Mock Meat Balls

A soup of black beans with onion, carrot, turnip, green pepper, butter, bay leaf, peppercorns, cloves, and mock meat balls, served with egg and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Henrietta Latham Dwight · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup with Mock Meat Balls

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak a pint of black beans overnight in a quart of water.

  2. In the morning drain the beans and cover with fresh water.

  3. Set the saucepan on the stove; when the water comes to a boil, drain it off and add a quart of fresh water.

Make the soup

  1. Cut onion finely, and with a few slices of carrot, turnip, and green pepper, fry in a heaping tablespoonful of butter.

  2. Add the fried vegetables to the beans with a bay leaf, half a dozen peppercorns, and two cloves.

  3. Cook until tender.

  4. Press the mixture through a sieve, return to the fire, and if it is too thick add more water.

Add the garnishes and serve

  1. Have a hard‑boiled egg and half a lemon cut into dice.

  2. Prepare mock meat balls the size of hickory nuts and boil them in water as other balls are cooked.

  3. Drop the balls into the soup.

  4. When hot, pour the soup over the lemon and egg in the tureen and serve.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

129Calories
8 gProtein
1 gFat
23 gCarbs

Counts 4 of 5 ingredients. The other 1 aren't in our nutrition table and add nothing above, so the real totals are higher.

What these numbers assume: 4 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Black Bean1/2 cup canned (120g) drained114
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Bay Leaf1 leaf (0.6g)2
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.

By Henrietta Latham Dwight. Recipe from a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg).

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.

  1. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Beans + clovetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together908 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

  3. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 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
Form the body of the soup and thicken it when pressed through a sieve.
Butter (in the method)
Fats the onion, carrot, turnip and green pepper, carrying their aroma into the soup.
Onion (in the method)
Adds savory aroma and sweetness as it softens in butter.
Lemon (in the method)
Adds acidity that brightens the rich bean soup.
Hard-boiled egg (in the method)
Adds soft, mild richness to the finished bowl.

The step that matters

Pressing the mixture through a sieve. Beans must be fully tender before pressing, or the purée stays grainy and coarse. Thin the soup with water only if it is too thick, since added water dilutes the bean flavor.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Black-eyed peafits better
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clove, pepper. 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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