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Drink

Bean Soup

A soup made from soaked black beans simmered with thyme, butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and sweet marjoram, optionally topped with meat, eggs, or wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,225 recipes. Both carry terpineol, which smells pine, woody. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the black beans overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until thoroughly cooked.

  3. Press the beans through a colander, retaining the liquid.

Make the soup

  1. Add thyme, butter, pepper, salt, parsley, and sweet marjoram to the bean liquid. Let it boil well.

  2. If you want, add pork, beef, and onions.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add forcemeat balls, sliced lemon, hard-boiled eggs, and wine if desired.

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 + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,225 recipes

    Shared aroma: terpineol (pine, woody).

  2. Thyme + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  4. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  5. Marjoram + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together957 recipes

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

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 cooked and pressed through a colander.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the soup.
Thyme
Contributes an herbal aroma that complements the beans.
Sweet marjoram
Adds a mild, sweet herbal aroma to the soup.

The step that matters

Press the beans through a colander, retaining the liquid. Pressing cooked beans breaks down their starchy cell walls and releases them into the liquid, which thickens the soup. Keeping the cooking liquid preserves flavor and body; discarding it would leave a thinner, blander result.

“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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