Name: Bean or Split Pea Soup No. 1
Ingredients: 1 quart beans; Water (enough to cover beans); 1 onion; 1 piece of veal or 1 knuckle of ham; Salt and pepper to taste; 2 cups boiling milk (if needed); Fried bread crumbs

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 or Split Pea Soup No. 1

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

Soak the beans overnight.
In the morning, add enough water to cover the beans and bring to a boil.

Make the soup

Rub the beans through a colander and then through a fine sieve.
Add the onion and veal or ham to the soup.
If necessary, thicken the soup and season to taste.
If the soup is not light enough, add 2 cups of boiling milk.

Serve

Place fried bread crumbs in a tureen.
Pour the soup over the bread crumbs.
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.

Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,466 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together68,474 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together332 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans: Form the body and thickness of the soup once rubbed through a sieve.
Milk: Adds richness and lightens the soup's texture when added.
Veal or ham: Adds savory meaty flavor to the soup as it cooks.
Onion: Adds aromatic flavor base to the soup.

The step that matters

Rub the beans through a colander and then through a fine sieve.. Pressing cooked beans through fine mesh breaks down their skins and starch, producing a smooth texture; leftover skins or lumps make the soup grainy.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, veal, pepper, milk, bread):

Beansthe original
Peasfits about as well
Chestnutfits about as well
Lima beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, veal, pepper, milk, bread. 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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Black 138 Haricot 45 White 36 Baked 31 Turtle 22 Lima 16 See all 179 →

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Oatmeal Bread51 recipes

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Bean or Split Pea Soup No. 1