Skip to main content
Soup

Haricot Bean Soup

A soup made from soaked haricot beans, stock, pepper, salt, and served with fried bread squares.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water.

  2. Drain the beans and boil them in cold water with a little salt until tender, about 1.5 hours.

  3. Press the beans through a sieve, discarding the husks.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the bean puree to warm stock, season with pepper and salt, and bring to a boil.

  2. Serve with fried bread squares.

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

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

  2. Beans + breadtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together332 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Provide the body and thick texture once pureed into the soup.
Stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavor of the soup.

The step that matters

Pressing the beans through a sieve. Pressing cooked beans breaks their skins and cells into a smooth puree that thickens the stock evenly. Discarding the husks keeps the soup smooth and free of grit.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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.

You might also like

Indian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and SpinachIndian Spiced Potato Soup with Tofu and Spinach448 recipesClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd SoupClear Carrot and Bottle Gourd Soup65 recipesMock Bisque SoupMock Bisque Soup51 recipesCream of Asparagus SoupCream of Asparagus Soup42 recipes