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Turtle Bean Soup

A soup of black beans, water, thyme, eggs, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,585 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Turtle Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

  1. Wash the black beans and place them in a pot with 3 quarts of water.

  2. Boil the beans until they are thoroughly soft.

  3. Rub the pulp through a colander and return it to the pot.

  4. Wrap the thyme in a clean cloth and add it to the pot.

  5. Let it boil for 10 minutes for flavor.

  6. Add the sliced hard boiled eggs, butter, black pepper, and coarse sea salt to the soup.

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. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Beans + thymetop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together488 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

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

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

  4. Thyme + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,758 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Break down into a thick pulp that gives the soup its body.
Dried thyme
Adds an earthy, herbal aroma as it steeps in the simmering broth.
Butter
Adds fat for a richer mouthfeel and rounder flavor.
Hard boiled eggs
Add protein and a mild, creamy texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Rub the pulp through a colander. Beans must be fully softened before straining; firm beans will not press through cleanly and leave a grainy, uneven texture in the soup.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against thyme, egg, butter, 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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