Name: Green Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 quart boiling water; 1 quart fresh kidney or Lima beans; 1 teaspoon essence of celery; fried bread, diced

Why it works: Lima beans and bread work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 38 recipes. Both carry guaiacol, which smells smoky, sweet. The science ↓

Green Bean Soup

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

1 quart boiling water
1 quart fresh kidney or Lima beans
1 teaspoon essence of celery
fried bread, diced

Directions

Remove fat from soup stock and add boiling water. Strain the mixture.
Bring the strained stock to a boil and skim off the scum.
Add the beans and boil slowly until they break apart.
Rub the mixture through a colander and season to taste.
Stir in the essence of celery and pour over diced fried bread in a tureen.

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.

Lima beans + breadtop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together38 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Lima beans + celerytop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together121 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).
Celery + breadtop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,110 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).