Name: White Bean Soup
Ingredients: 1 pint white beans, soaked overnight; 6 potatoes, chopped; 6 apples, chopped; salt to taste; pepper to taste

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 ↓

White Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Boil the soaked white beans for a little over 1 hour.
Add the chopped potatoes and cook for 30 minutes.
Stir in the chopped apples, salt, and pepper.
Cook for an additional 30 minutes 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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.

Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Potato + peppertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together8,305 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,733 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Potato + appletop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together603 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Beans + appletop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together194 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

White beans: Provide the main body and creamy texture of the soup as they cook down.
Potatoes: Break down during cooking to thicken the soup and add body.
Apples: Add gentle sweetness and a touch of acidity that balances the starchy beans and potatoes.