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Black-bean Soup

A soup made from soaked black beans, brown stock, roux, herbs, and sherry, finished with lemon slices, egg, and force‑meat.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
By Mary Ronald · From a historical cookbook (Project Gutenberg) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Black-bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak two cupfuls of black beans overnight.

  2. Put the soaked beans into a saucepan with a bouquet of herbs, and cover them with cold water.

  3. Let them boil slowly until tender, adding more water if necessary.

  4. When the beans are very soft, remove the bouquet, drain off the water, and pass the beans through a puree sieve.

  5. Add to the pulp enough brown stock to make a soup of the consistency of thin cream.

Finish the soup

  1. Place the soup again on the fire and add a brown roux made of one tablespoonful of butter and one tablespoonful of flour, cooked together until brown; dilute it to smoothness before adding and cook it with the soup for five minutes.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Strain the soup through a sieve into the tureen.

Garnish and serve

  1. Add thin slices of lemon, egg balls, and force‑meat balls, allowing one of each to each portion of soup.

  2. Add also the white of one hard‑boiled egg cut into small dice, and one quarter of a cupful of sherry or red wine.

Nutrition, whole recipe (rough)

836Calories
29 gProtein
19 gFat
130 gCarbs
What these numbers assume: 11 portions
IngredientPortion assumedkcal
Flour1 cup (125g) all-purpose455
Black Bean1/2 cup canned (120g) drained114
Butter1 tbsp (14g)102
Egg1 large egg (50g)78
Onion1 medium (110g)44
Wine2 tbsp cooking wine (30ml)25
Clove1 tsp ground (2g)7
Black Pepper1 tsp ground (2.3g)6
Thyme1 tsp dried (1.4g)4
Parsley1 tbsp chopped fresh (3.8g)1
Salt1 tsp (6g)0

One typical portion per ingredient; the recipe's quantities are not counted. A rough guide only, not for medical or dietary planning.

By Mary Ronald. 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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,768 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Thyme + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,171 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. 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
Form the body of the soup once softened and pureed into a thick base.
Butter
Enriches the roux that thickens the soup and adds richness.
Flour
Thickens the soup with the butter as a roux, giving smoothness and body.
Brown stock (in the method)
Thins the bean puree to a soup consistency and adds savoury depth.
Sherry
Adds aroma and a touch of sweetness and acidity to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Adding the brown roux. Flour must be cooked in the butter until brown and fully diluted before it goes into the soup. Cooking out the raw starch avoids a pasty taste, and diluting it smoothly prevents lumps while the soup thickens.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, sherry, butter, parsley, thyme, clove, flour):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Parsnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, sherry, butter, parsley, thyme, clove, flour. 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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