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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with navy beans, pork, and seasonings, simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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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 ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

  2. Drain the beans and add 2 quarts of cold water and ¼ teaspoon baking soda.

  3. Parboil the beans for 20 minutes, then drain.

Make the soup

  1. In a large pot, add 4 quarts of hot water and ½ pound of fresh pork.

  2. Season with salt and pepper.

  3. Boil for 3 hours.

  4. Press the mixture through a colander and serve.

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

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

  3. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Navy beans
Provide the starch and body that thicken the soup as they break down.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soaking water, helping the beans soften more evenly.
Fresh pork
Adds savory flavour and fat to the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Parboil the beans for 20 minutes, then drain. Discarding the parboiling water removes compounds that cause bitterness and gas, and the beans need that clean start before the long simmer.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Black-eyed peafits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Soybeanfits about as well
  4. Sesamefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper. 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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