Name: Bean Soup
Ingredients: 2 pounds salt pork; 1 quart beans; 3 onions

Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

2 pounds salt pork
1 quart beans
3 onions

Directions

Prepare

Par-boil the beans.
Chop the onions.

Cook and serve

In a pot, combine the salt pork, beans, and onions.
Boil slowly for about 6 hours.
Strain the soup through a sieve.
Serve with cubes of toast.

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.

Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together5,242 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together18,214 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Pork + beanstop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,000 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

Beans: Provide the main body and starch that thicken the soup as they cook down.
Salt pork: Adds fat and savory flavor that carries through the long simmer into the broth.
Onions: Contribute sweetness and aroma as they soften and release their flavor into the soup.