Name: Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart beans, soaked overnight; 1 piece fat pork, about the size of a Baldwin apple; pepper, to taste; coarse sea salt, to taste

Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

1 quart beans, soaked overnight
1 piece fat pork, about the size of a Baldwin apple
pepper, to taste
coarse sea salt, to taste

Directions

Prepare

Cut the pork into small cubes.
Place the soaked beans in a pot with cold water and bring to a boil; drain the water and repeat this process twice.

Cook

Add the pork to the beans and boil steadily for five hours.
Add water as needed while boiling.
Season with pepper and salt.

Serve

If preferred, pass the soup through a colander before serving, rubbing the thick part through with a wooden spoon.

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.

Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + appletop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,581 recipes

Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).
Beans + appletop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together194 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,121 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

Beans: Provide the main body of the soup and thicken it as their starches soften during long boiling.
Fat pork: Adds fat and savory flavor that carries into the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boiling steadily for five hours. Beans must cook long enough to become fully tender; too little heat or time leaves them firm and hard to purée. Keeping the boil steady also keeps the pot cooking evenly, and adding water as needed prevents the beans from scorching or drying out.