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Potato and Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked beans, potatoes, and optional onion or celery, simmered with milk or water and seasoned with coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Potato and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Potato and Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. Drain the soaked beans.

  3. Place the beans in a pot with cold water and cook until tender.

  4. Rub the cooked beans through a colander.

Prepare the potatoes

  1. Peel and slice the potatoes.

  2. Cook the sliced potatoes in a small amount of hot water until tender.

  3. Rub the cooked potatoes through a colander and add to the beans.

Finish the soup

  1. Add enough milk or water to make about 3 pints of soup.

  2. Season with coarse sea salt and boil for a few minutes.

  3. If desired, simmer slices of onion or celery in the soup for flavor.

  4. Remove the onion or celery 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. Potato + oniontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

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

  3. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  4. Potato + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the main body of the soup once cooked and pressed through a colander.
Potatoes
Break down when mashed and pressed, thickening the soup and giving it a smooth body.
Milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup, or water can be used to thin it instead.

The step that matters

Rubbing the cooked beans and potatoes through a colander. Starchy foods must be fully tender before pressing; undercooked beans or potatoes resist passing through the sieve and leave a grainy texture. Pressing ruptures the cells, which produces a smooth, thick purée.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, potato, milk, celery):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, potato, milk, celery. 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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