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Red Bean Soup

A soup made from kidney beans, onion, celery, butter, water, and milk, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Red Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the kidney beans overnight.

  2. Drain and rinse them.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the beans, chopped onion, and celery with cold water.

  2. Simmer until the beans are tender.

  3. Strain the mixture through a potato press to create a puree.

  4. Return the puree to the pot.

  5. Add butter, water, milk, salt, and pepper.

  6. Cook for 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  3. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Kidney beans + oniontop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,050 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

Kidney beans
Provide the main body, and their starch thickens the puree as it cooks.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the flavour of the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smoother mouthfeel.
Onion
Builds savoury aroma as it softens in the soup base.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are tender. Kidney beans contain a natural lectin that is destroyed only by thorough cooking, so undercooked beans can cause stomach upset. Full softening also makes the puree smooth.

Swap the kidney beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, celery, butter, milk, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Walnutfits better
  3. Sesamefits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, celery, butter, milk, 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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