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White Bean Soup

A simple soup made from dried beans, water, optional meat scraps, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White 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. Add the dried beans to a pot and cover with water.

  2. If desired, add any cold meat scraps or sauce.

  3. Boil until the beans are very soft, about 1-2 hours. To test, blow on a few beans; if the skin separates, they are ready.

  4. Press the beans through a sieve.

  5. Serve with the meat and vegetables without straining.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 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

Small dried beans
Form the body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Cold meat scraps or sauce
Add savory flavor to the soup, and their fat contributes richness.

The step that matters

Boil until the beans are very soft. Dried beans need a long, steady boil to fully soften their starch and skins. Undercooked beans stay grainy and will not press smoothly through a sieve, so test them before moving on.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Soybeanfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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