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Baked Bean Soup

A soup made from baked beans, water, soup vegetables, herbs, flour, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,080 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Baked Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Reserve a portion of baked beans for salad.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine baked beans, water, soup vegetables, and herbs.

  2. Simmer for 1 hour.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Return the liquid to the pot.

Finish

  1. Stir in flour mixed with milk to prevent settling.

  2. Dilute the soup with hot milk to desired consistency.

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Flour + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

Flour and milk barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Baked beans
Form the main body of the soup and, once sieved, its thick, smooth base.
Soup vegetables
Add savory, aromatic flavor to the simmering liquid.
Flour
Thickens the liquid slightly so the soup stays evenly suspended rather than settling.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor, and lets the cook thin it to the desired consistency.

The step that matters

Stir in the flour mixed with milk. Flour mixed with cold milk first disperses evenly, so it thickens the soup smoothly without lumps, and it keeps the solids from settling out.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Almondfits better
  2. Milletfits better
  3. Chestnutfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against flour, milk. 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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