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Bean Soup

A thick soup made from dried beans, onion, milk, flour, and butter, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the beans in cold water and soak overnight.

  2. Boil the beans until tender.

Make the soup

  1. In a bowl, mix the grated onion, flour, butter, and a little milk to form a cream.

  2. Add the cream mixture and fresh milk to the beans.

  3. Boil in a double boiler.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Strain.

  6. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 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 main body of the soup and give it its substance and texture.
Fresh milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, giving the soup a smooth, rich body.
Flour
Thickens the milk and cream mixture so the soup becomes smooth and velvety.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a smooth mouthfeel in the cream mixture.
Grated onion
Contributes savory aroma and flavour to the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the cream mixture to the beans. Flour must be blended into a smooth cream with a little milk before it goes into the hot soup; otherwise it can clump and stay lumpy, because starch granules need to be separated to hydrate and thicken evenly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Sweet potatofits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Capsicumfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, milk, flour, 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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