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Black Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with black beans, beef, ham, onion, tomatoes, herbs, spices, lemon, butter, optional eggs and Sherry wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 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

Prepare

  1. Wash and soak the black beans in water overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In the morning, bring the beans and water to a boil with the beef, ham, onion, tomatoes, soup herbs, salt, cayenne, and cloves.

  2. Boil for four hours.

Finish

  1. If desired, strain the soup before adding the lemon, eggs, and Sherry wine.

  2. Add the sliced lemon and butter, stirring to combine.

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. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  3. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  4. Beef + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,448 recipes

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

  5. Onion + tomatotop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 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 thicken it as they break down during long cooking.
Beef
Adds savory, meaty depth to the broth during the long simmer.
Ham
Contributes salty, smoky richness to the broth.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and body, balancing the rich meat and beans.
Butter
Adds fat and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil for four hours. A long, steady simmer is needed to soften dried beans fully and extract flavor from the meat. Too little time leaves the beans firm and the broth thin.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, beef, ham, onion, tomato, clove, butter):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Coconutfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef, ham, onion, tomato, clove, butter. 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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