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Bean and Tomato Soup

A simple soup made from navy beans, tomato pulp, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean and Tomato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

  2. Boil the beans in 3 quarts of water until very tender.

  3. Rub the cooked beans through a sieve.

Finish the soup

  1. Return the bean puree to the kettle and add the tomato pulp.

  2. Season with salt, pepper, and butter.

  3. If the soup is too thin, mix 1 tablespoon of flour with a little butter and add it to the soup.

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 + tomatotop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,080 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Navy beans
Provide the main body and starch that thickens the soup when pureed.
Tomato pulp
Adds acidity, color, and a fresh tomato flavor to the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Flour
Thickens the soup if it is too thin, through starch swelling in liquid.

The step that matters

Rub the cooked beans through a sieve. Beans must be fully tender before sieving, since firm beans will not pass through smoothly and will leave a grainy texture in the puree.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Okrafits better
  2. Sweet potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, pepper, butter, flour. 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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