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Beans, Haricot, Soup

A simple soup made from haricot beans, onion, turnip, potato, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 400 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Beans, Haricot, Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Wash the haricot beans and soak them in cold water for several hours.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the soaked beans and water or stock, and bring to a boil, skimming well.

  3. Wash and chop the onion, turnip, and potato, then add them to the beans.

Simmer and strain

  1. Skim thoroughly as it begins to boil again, then let it simmer gently for two hours.

  2. Press all the ingredients through a colander or sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the milk, salt, and pepper to taste.

  2. Return the soup to the saucepan.

  3. Bring it to a boil again before serving.

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 + turniptop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together400 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. 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

Haricot beans
Form the body of the soup, thickening it as they break down when pressed.
Potato
Adds starch that helps thicken the soup and gives it a smooth, full texture.
Milk
Adds richness and softens the flavor, rounding out the soup.

The step that matters

Pressing the soup through a sieve. Pressing forces the softened beans and vegetables through the mesh, breaking them into a smooth purée. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and uneven in texture.

Swap the turnip

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Turnipthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, onion, potato, milk, 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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