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Black Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with black beans, meat stock, red pepper, herbs, and optional fried meatballs and hard‑boiled eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Thyme and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,973 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Boil the black beans until tender, then strain them.

  2. Prepare the meat stock using any kind of meat, reserving the best for the force meat balls.

  3. Add the bean pulp to the stock and bring to a boil.

Flavour and finish the soup

  1. Tie the red pepper, salt, thyme, and cloves in a cheesecloth bag and add to the soup.

  2. Stir in the white wine and simmer until ready to serve.

Serve

  1. In a tureen, place the fried force meat balls and sliced hard-boiled eggs.

  2. Pour the soup over the meat balls and eggs, and serve with lemon slices.

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. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Thyme + clovetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together4,108 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  3. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  4. Pepper + thymetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Pepper + clovetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Cooked and strained to form the thick body of the soup.
Meat stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury meaty flavour of the soup.
Red pepper
Adds sweetness and mild colour as it simmers in the cheesecloth bag.
Dried thyme
Contributes an herbal, aromatic note to the broth.
White wine
Adds acidity and a bright, lightly tart edge to the soup.
Hard boiled eggs
Adds richness and a soft, creamy texture when served with the soup.

The step that matters

Simmer until ready to serve. Gentle simmering after adding the wine lets flavours blend without boiling off the delicate aromatics. Boiling hard can also break down the bean pulp unevenly and cloud the soup, so keep the heat low and steady.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, pepper, thyme, clove, white wine, egg, lemon):

  1. Chickpeafits about as well
  2. Chestnutfits about as well
  3. Walnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, pepper, thyme, clove, white wine, egg, lemon. 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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