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White Bean Soup

A soup of white beans, pork, milk, and bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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White Bean Soup

Why it works: Milk and bread are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,466 recipes. Both carry 2-undecenal, which smells sweet. The science ↓

White Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Put the white beans in 1 quart of cold water and boil for 5 minutes.

  2. Drain the boiling water and place the beans in cold water until the skins burst.

Cook the soup

  1. Combine the beans with 2 quarts of cold water and the blanched pork, then simmer until the beans are very soft.

  2. Add salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Once the beans are soft, strain them through a sieve and return to the stove.

  4. Add 1 pint of milk and let it boil before removing from heat.

Serve

  1. Serve with bread cut into dice and browned in the oven.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  2. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  4. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  5. Pork + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,371 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-acetyl-1-pyrroline (popcorn, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

White beans
Provide the main body and thickness of the soup as they soften and break down.
Milk
Adds richness and a smoother, creamier texture to the soup.
Blanched pork
Adds savoury flavour and richness to the cooking liquid.

The step that matters

Simmer until the beans are very soft. Beans must be fully tender before straining; under-cooked beans stay firm and grainy, so the soup will not pass smoothly through the sieve.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (pork, pepper, milk, bread):

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Lima beansfits about as well
  3. Peasfits about as well
  4. Peanutfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, milk, bread. 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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