Name: Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint of beans; 3 pints of cold water (for initial boiling); 1 gallon of cold water; 1 lean beef soup bone; 6 whole cloves; 6 whole allspice berries; 6 whole black pepper berries; 1 slice of onion; crackers (for serving)

Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

Wash the beans and place them in a pot with 3 pints of cold water, then bring the mixture to a boil.
Drain the water.

Make the soup

Add 1 gallon of cold water and the beef soup bone.
Boil for 3.5 hours.
Add the cloves, allspice, black pepper berries, and onion slice.
Strain the soup.

Serve

Serve with crackers.

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.

Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together7,874 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Allspice + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together6,395 recipes

Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).
Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together17,092 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beans: Provide the main body and starchy substance that thickens the soup as it cooks.
Beef soup bone: Releases meaty flavor and gelatin into the water during long simmering.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, clove, allspice, pepper, onion):

Beansthe original
Chickpeafits about as well
Lentilsfits about as well
Chestnutfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, clove, allspice, pepper, onion. 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.