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A Plain Bean Soup

A hearty bean soup made with beans, salt pork, onion, butter, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

A Plain Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water.

  2. Boil for 10 minutes.

  3. Add 1 teaspoon of baking soda and boil for 5 more minutes.

  4. Strain the beans through a colander.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, combine the beans, boiling water, salt pork, and a small onion fried in butter (not browned).

  2. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

  3. Boil for 3 hours or until the beans are soft.

  4. Rub the mixture through a strainer.

  5. Bring to a boil again.

  6. 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.

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 + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  2. Pork + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,214 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).

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 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, thickening into a smooth purée when rubbed through a strainer.
Salt pork
Adds savory fat and salty flavour as it simmers into the broth.
Butter
Softens the onion gently without browning, adding richness and a mild sweetness.
Onion
Contributes aromatic flavour that deepens the soup as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil for 3 hours or until the beans are soft. Beans must cook long enough to fully soften, since the mixture is then pushed through a strainer; undercooked beans will leave a grainy, lumpy purée.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Sesamefits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Soybeanfits about as well
  4. Black-eyed peafits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, onion, butter, 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.

More bean soup recipes

Black 138Haricot 45White 36Baked 31Turtle 22Lima 16 See all 179 →

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