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Grandmother's Bean Soup

A bean soup cooked with pork and served with pork dumplings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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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 ↓

Grandmother's Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Wash the white beans well and cook them in 1 quart of cold water.

  2. When the water boils, pour it off and add another quart of cold water.

  3. Add the piece of pork and salt to taste.

  4. As the water boils away, add more water to keep the beans covered.

  5. Cook until the beans mash easily.

Make the dough

  1. Beat the eggs with 2 tablespoons of water and a pinch of salt.

  2. Stir in flour until the mixture is very stiff.

Brown and serve

  1. Remove two-thirds of the beans and place them in a pan.

  2. Lay the piece of pork on top.

  3. Sprinkle with salt and pepper.

  4. Brown in the oven.

  5. Season with a little pepper.

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. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  2. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  3. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Egg + flourtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 recipes

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

Egg and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

White beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during cooking.
Pork
Adds savory flavor and fat to the beans as they cook and brown.
Eggs
Bind the dough and give it structure once cooked.
Flour
Gives the dough its stiffness and structure so it holds together.

The step that matters

Cook the beans until they mash easily. Beans that stay firm will not break down to thicken the soup. Keeping them covered with water lets them cook evenly and soften fully.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, egg, flour, pepper):

  1. Chestnutfits about as well
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Beansthe original
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, egg, flour, 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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