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Haricot Soup

A bean soup made with haricot beans, onions, milk, salt, pepper, and water.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 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 ↓

Haricot Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the beans in 1 quart of cold water for 12 hours.

  2. Peel and slice the onions.

Cook the soup

  1. Put the soaked beans with their soaking water into a saucepan with the onions and another quart of water.

  2. Boil slowly for 3 hours, or until the beans are tender.

  3. Strain the soup through a colander or sieve, mashing the beans well into the soup.

  4. Pour the soup back into the saucepan, add the milk and seasoning, and boil for 10 minutes.

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

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

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

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

  4. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

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

  5. Onion + milktop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanal (green, grassy).

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 when mashed.
Onions
Add savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften during the long simmer.
Skim milk
Adds creaminess and mild richness to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Boil slowly for 3 hours, or until the beans are tender. Dried haricot beans need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. Cooking too fast can break the skins while the centres stay firm, so the soup will not mash smoothly.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Tomatofits better
  3. Sweet potatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, milk, 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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