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Black Bean Soup

A soup made from boiled beans, meat stock, red pepper, seasoning, and optional force meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the beans and strain them.

  2. Prepare your meat stock, saving the best for force meat balls.

Make the soup

  1. Combine the bean pulp with the stock and boil.

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

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

  2. Beans + meattop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together369 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

  3. Meat + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,777 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Once strained into pulp, they give the soup its body and thickness.
Stock
Supplies the liquid and savoury meaty flavour base for the soup.
Red pepper
Adds heat and a sharp, peppery bite to the soup.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Beansthe original
  3. Sesamefits about as well
  4. Lima beansfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, 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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