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String-bean Soup

A soup made from string beans, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

String-bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Remove the strings from the beans and cut them into small pieces, then wash them in cold water.

  2. Boil the beans in salted boiling water until tender.

  3. Rub the cooked beans through a sieve using a potato masher.

Make the soup

  1. In a clean saucepan, melt the butter and flour over medium heat, stirring until smooth.

  2. Gradually stir in the boiling water.

  3. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  4. Add the prepared beans to the soup.

  5. Season the soup with salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper.

  6. Let the soup boil once and 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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,799 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. White pepper + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,478 recipes

    Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

String beans
Form the body of the soup, adding bulk and texture once pureed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds richness and carries flavor, and helps form the smooth base with the flour.
Flour
Thickens the soup as its starch swells in the hot liquid, giving it a smooth, body-rich consistency.

The step that matters

Gradually stir in the boiling water. Flour starch clumps when it meets liquid all at once. Adding the boiling water slowly while stirring lets each starch granule disperse and swell evenly, producing a smooth, lump-free soup.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Turmericfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Sagefits better
  4. White pepperthe original

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