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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with navy beans, vegetables, pork, and seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Onion and potato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,023 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, combine the soaked beans, water, onions, carrot, potatoes, pork, red pepper, and salt.

  2. Bring to a boil and then simmer slowly for 5 to 6 hours.

  3. Pass the mixture through a colander or sieve to separate the pulp.

  4. Return the pulp to the pot and season with salt and Cayenne pepper.

Serve

  1. In a separate pan, fry the croutons or bread squares in butter until browned.

  2. Serve the soup in a tureen with the croutons on top.

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. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  3. Beans + carrottop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,443 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together655 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Potato + porktop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,668 recipes

    Shared aroma: sotolon (curry, maple).

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

What each ingredient does

Navy beans
Provide the bulk and starch that thicken the soup once puréed through a sieve.
Potatoes
Break down during long simmering to add body and help thicken the soup.
Onions
Build savory depth as they soften and sweeten during the long simmer.
Pork
Adds meaty flavour and richness to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Simmering slowly for 5 to 6 hours. A gentle simmer lets the beans and potatoes soften fully so they can be pushed through a sieve smoothly. A hard boil can break up the mixture unevenly and make the soup cloudy or grainy.

“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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