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Bean and Potato Soup

A simple soup of beans and potatoes simmered with water, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 655 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Bean and Potato Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight in water.

  2. Drain and rinse the beans.

  3. Place them in a pot with 4 cups of fresh water.

  4. Bring to a boil.

  5. Reduce heat and simmer until beans are tender.

Finish the soup

  1. Peel and dice the potatoes.

  2. Add them to the pot.

  3. Season with salt and pepper.

  4. Cook until potatoes are soft.

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

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

  2. Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 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).

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 protein of the soup, thickening it as they break down.
Potatoes
Add starch that softens during cooking and thickens the broth slightly.

The step that matters

Simmer the beans until tender. Dried beans need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. Adding potatoes or salt too early can leave the beans firm, so cook them until tender first.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Chickpeafits about as well
  3. Black-eyed peafits less well
  4. Lentilsfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against potato, 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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