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Baked Bean Soup

A simple soup made from baked beans, water, tomato, 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 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 ↓

Baked Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine baked beans and water in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Stew until the beans are soft.

  3. Add the tomato and rub the mixture through a strainer.

  4. Return the strained mixture to the pot and boil again.

  5. Thin with additional water if necessary.

  6. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

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).

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

What each ingredient does

Baked beans
Form the body of the soup, softening into a thick, creamy base when stewed and strained.
Tomato
Adds acidity and savory flavor, along with some body once rubbed through the strainer.

The step that matters

Stew until the beans are soft. Beans that are not fully softened stay grainy and will not purée smoothly through the strainer. Gentle simmering breaks down starches and cell walls evenly, giving a smoother soup.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against tomato, 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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