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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with dried beans, salt pork, onion, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Measure and wash the beans.

  2. Add the cold water to the beans.

  3. Scrape and clean the salt pork, then add it to the beans.

Cook

  1. Chop the onion and add it to the soup, then cover tightly.

  2. Boil for 4 to 5 hours, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.

  3. Mix the flour with a little water until smooth, then add to the soup.

Finish

  1. Strain the soup through a sieve and serve.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

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

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the body of the soup, as their starch and protein soften and thicken the liquid.
Salt pork
Adds fat and savory flavor that rounds out the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aroma and gentle sweetness as it softens during the long simmer.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid.

The step that matters

Mix the flour smooth before adding it. Flour added dry or unmixed clumps and forms lumps that do not disperse. Blending it first with a little water separates the particles so the starch thickens the soup evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Welsh onionfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, flour. 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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