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Black Bean Soup

A soup made from black beans, tomatoes, and seasonings, finished with brandy, sherry, and lemon slices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the black beans in water until tender.

  2. Add the tomatoes and boil for two hours.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Stir in the cornstarch, pepper, salt, butter, and cloves.

Finish and serve

  1. Just before serving, add brandy and sherry to taste, along with the lemon slices.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  3. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Brandy + sherrytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,209 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 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

Black beans
Form the body of the soup and give it its substance and earthy flavor.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and moisture, breaking down during the long boil to build the soup's base.
Cornstarch
Thickens the strained liquid so the soup has a smoother, more body-filled texture.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounder mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Brandy
Contributes aroma and a warming flavor when added at the end.

The step that matters

Adding the cornstarch. Cornstarch thickens only when heated, and it can clump if stirred into hot liquid without being mixed smooth first. Stir it in evenly so the soup thickens without lumps.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, pepper, butter, clove, brandy, sherry):

  1. Plumfits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, pepper, butter, clove, brandy, sherry. 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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