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Black Bean Soup

A soup made with black beans, meat stock, red pepper, thyme, cloves, wine, and optional fried meat balls, topped with boiled eggs and lemon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Boil the black beans until tender, then strain them.

  2. Prepare the meat stock using any kind of meat, reserving the best for the fried force meat balls.

  3. Add the bean pulp to the stock and bring to a boil.

  4. Tie the thyme in a bag and add it to the soup along with the red pepper, salt, cloves, and wine.

  5. Skim out any bones or pieces of meat before serving.

Serve

  1. When ready to serve, place the fried meat balls in a tureen.

  2. Top with sliced hard boiled eggs and squeeze in lemon juice according to taste.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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 and thick texture of the soup once boiled and strained.
Meat stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor of the soup.
Red pepper
Adds sweetness and fresh vegetable flavor to the soup.
Wine
Adds acidity and depth of flavor to the broth.
Hard boiled eggs
Add richness and a soft, creamy contrast when sliced on top.

The step that matters

Boil the black beans until tender, then strain them.. Beans must be fully softened before straining, because undercooked beans stay firm and grainy and will not break down into a smooth bean pulp for the soup.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, thyme, clove, wine, egg, lemon):

  1. Chickpeafits better
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, thyme, clove, wine, egg, lemon. 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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