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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from kidney beans, water, butter, salt, red pepper, and white wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,083 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Put the kidney beans into 2 quarts of water and boil for 3 hours.

  2. Pour off the water and mash the beans through a colander with a wooden masher.

  3. Return the mashed beans to the boiling water.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the butter, salt, and red pepper, and let it boil for 15 minutes.

  2. Stir in the white wine before serving.

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. Butter + white winetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,083 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  2. Pepper + white winetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,433 recipes

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

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

  4. Kidney beans + white winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together19 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Kidney beans + buttertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together186 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Kidney beans
Provide the main body and starch that thicken the soup when mashed.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, giving the soup a smoother mouthfeel.
White wine
Adds acidity and a bright, fresh flavour at the end.

The step that matters

Stir in the white wine before serving. Acid is added at the end so its bright flavour stays fresh; boiling it for a long time would drive off much of the wine's aroma and sharpness.

Swap the kidney beans

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

  1. Peasfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Walnutfits better
  4. Kidney beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, white wine. 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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