Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓
Bean Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Cook the broth
Boil the beans in water for 15 minutes.
Add the ham bone and boil for 3 hours.
Strain the mixture through a gravy strainer.
Finish and serve
Stir in hot milk until the desired consistency is reached.
Add the butter and serve immediately.
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.
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Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Ham + buttertop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).
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Beans + milktop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,266 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
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Beans + buttertop 19% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,799 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
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Beans + hamtop 22% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together140 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Dried beans
- Starch from the beans thickens the liquid and gives the soup its body.
- Ham bone
- Slowly releases savory, smoky flavor and gelatin into the water as it simmers.
- Milk
- Adds creaminess and a mild sweetness, and helps set the final consistency.
- Butter
- Adds fat that rounds out the flavor and gives a richer mouthfeel.
The step that matters
Stir in hot milk. Adding milk to the hot soup gently, and keeping it hot rather than cold, helps it blend smoothly and reduces the chance of curdling or uneven texture. Adding it slowly lets you stop once the desired consistency is reached.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (ham, milk, butter):
- Lima beansfits better
- Peasfits better
- Almondfits about as well
- Beansthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against ham, milk, 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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