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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with dried beans, salt pork, onion, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Measure and wash the beans.

  2. Add the cold water to the beans.

  3. Scrape and clean the salt pork.

  4. Add the salt pork to the beans.

  5. Chop the onion.

  6. Add the onion to the soup.

Cook

  1. Cover the soup tightly.

  2. Boil for 4 to 5 hours, being careful not to burn.

  3. Mix the flour with a little water until smooth.

  4. Add the flour mixture to the soup.

Finish and serve

  1. Rub the soup through a sieve.

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

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 recipes

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

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Onion + flourtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together32,460 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 thicken it as they break down during long boiling.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and flavor to the broth as it simmers with the beans.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the soup base.
Flour
Thickens the soup slightly when stirred in as a smooth paste.

The step that matters

Boil for 4 to 5 hours, being careful not to burn. Long simmering softens dried beans fully, but the soup is thick and sits on the pot base, so it can scorch. Keep the heat controlled and stir to prevent burning on the bottom.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Welsh onionfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Lettucefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pork, flour. 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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