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Red Pottage

A red soup made from beans, tomatoes, beetroot, and vegetables, simmered and seasoned with butter, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and 2,711 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

The recipe

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans in cold water for 24 hours.

Cook

  1. Combine the soaked beans, 8 cups of water, butter, and baking soda in a pot and bring to a boil.

  2. Once boiling, add the tomatoes, celery or parsnip, onions (all chopped into small pieces), and the peeled and sliced beetroot.

  3. Allow to boil for 2½ hours.

Finish and serve

  1. Pass the mixture through a wire sieve.

  2. Season with pepper and salt to taste.

  3. Reheat the soup and 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 aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Beans + tomatotop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,711 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  4. Beans + beetroottop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together215 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  5. Tomato + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together17,913 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

Haricot beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during long cooking.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and a bright flavour that balances the starchy beans.
Beetroot
Contributes earthy sweetness and a deep red colour to the soup.
Onions
Build savoury depth as they soften and release their sugars into the broth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Allow to boil for 2½ hours. Dried haricot beans must cook long enough to become fully soft; undercooked beans stay firm and grainy, and the long simmer also breaks them down so the sieved soup turns smooth.

Flavor stand-ins for the beetroot

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

  1. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  2. Carrotbetter flavor fit
  3. Potatobetter flavor fit
  4. Beetrootthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, butter, onion, celery, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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