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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with lima beans, onion, butter, flour, bean and beef stock, sweet cream, and garnished with parsley and whipped cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the lima beans, onion, and salt in enough cold water to cover for 3 to 4 hours.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the melted butter.

  3. Stir in the flour, then add the bean stock and beef stock.

  4. Boil for 8 minutes, then add the sweet cream and season with salt and pepper.

Serve

  1. Serve garnished with chopped parsley and a teaspoon of whipped cream in each bowl.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

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.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 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

Lima beans
Break down into the body and thick texture of the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Flour
Thickens the stock so the soup has more body.
Sweet cream
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow finish.

The step that matters

Boiling the flour into the stock. Flour must be stirred in evenly before the liquid is added, or it will form lumps. Once the stock is added, the soup should be boiled gently so the starch swells and thickens it fully.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, butter, flour, beef, cream, pepper, parsley):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chestnutfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, butter, flour, beef, cream, pepper, parsley. 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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