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White Bean Soup

A simple soup made from dried beans, water, optional meat scraps, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

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

Why it works: Beef and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 18,971 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

White Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Rinse the beans and add them to a pot with enough water to cover them.

  2. If desired, add any cold scraps of meat or sauce.

Cook and strain

  1. Boil the beans until they are very soft.

  2. To test, take a few beans in a spoon and blow on them; if the skins separate, they are ready.

  3. Press the beans through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Serve the soup with the meat and vegetables without straining.

  2. 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.

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.

  1. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

  2. Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

  3. Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,134 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

Small dried beans
Provide the main body of the soup as they soften and break down into a thick purée.
Water
Softens the dried beans during boiling and forms the liquid base of the soup.
Cold roast meat or meat sauce
Adds savoury meaty flavour to the soup when included.

The step that matters

Boil the beans until very soft. Dried beans must be fully cooked to become tender; undercooked beans keep firm skins and a grainy texture, and they will not purée smoothly when pressed through a sieve.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, 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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