Name: Haricot Soup
Ingredients: 1 cup dried haricot beans (or 2 cups fresh green haricot beans); 1 ounce butter (if using green beans); 1 carrot, diced; 1 onion, diced; 1 leek, sliced; 1 stalk celery, diced; 1 turnip, diced; Optional: a bit of bacon

Why it works: Leek and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,046 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Haricot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare the beans

Soak dried beans overnight and then boil until tender.

Make the soup

Combine the beans with carrots, onion, leek, celery, and turnip in a large pot.
Cover with water and simmer until all vegetables are tender.
Add green beans to the pot and cook until tender, about 20 minutes.
Stir in butter just before serving, and add bacon if desired.

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.

Leek + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,046 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Beans + green beanstop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together36 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together10,173 recipes

Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).
Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together8,002 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,418 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans: Provide the main body and starchy, filling texture of the soup.
Onion: Adds savory sweetness and aroma as it softens in the pot.
Carrot: Contributes natural sweetness and color while softening into the broth.
Butter: Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

Swap the green beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, carrot, onion, leek, celery, turnip):

Parsnipfits better
Chivefits better
Lettucefits better
Green beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, carrot, onion, leek, celery, turnip. 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.