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Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with beans, beef stock, onion, carrot, and optional tomato.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  2. Drain and wash the beans in fresh water.

Simmer the soup

  1. Put the beans in a soup pot with the beef stock.

  2. Bring to a boil and then simmer for at least 3 hours.

  3. Two hours before serving, slice the onion and carrot.

  4. Optional: add a little tomato for extra flavor.

  5. If desired, strain the soup through a colander before serving hot.

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

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

  3. Carrot + tomatotop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,606 recipes

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

  4. Onion + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 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
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they cook and break down.
Beef stock
Provides the liquid base and savory flavor for the soup.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds subtle sweetness and body to the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Simmer for at least 3 hours. Dried beans need long, gentle simmering to become fully tender. Boiling hard can break the skins and cloud the broth, while stopping early leaves them firm and starchy.

Swap the tomato

The recipe marks tomato as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, beef, onion, carrot):

  1. Potatofits about as well
  2. Leekfits about as well
  3. Turnipfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, beef, onion, carrot. 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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