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Bean Soup

Bean Soup is a hearty dish made with beans, pork, and optional milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pork are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,000 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Rinse and wash the beans thoroughly.

  2. Cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Add baking soda and boil for 5-10 minutes.

  4. Drain the water and rinse the beans with fresh warm water.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the pork, gash it four times, and cover with water.

  2. Cook until the beans are soft, adding boiling water as needed.

  3. Remove the pork, slice it, and brown in a skillet on both sides.

  4. Return some of the beans to the skillet to brown with the pork drippings.

  5. Optionally, strain the soup through a colander.

  6. Add dumplings if desired.

  7. Just before serving, stir in a cup of rich milk and let it boil.

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 + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  2. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they soften during cooking.
Baking soda
Raises the pH of the soaking water, helping the beans soften more quickly.
Pork
Adds savoury fat and flavour to the broth, and browned slices add roasted flavour.
Rich milk
Adds richness and creaminess to the soup just before serving.

The step that matters

Browning the beans with pork drippings. Browning in fat creates roasted, savoury flavours through the Maillard reaction. Returning some beans to the skillet adds depth, but they can scorch if left unattended over high heat.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Soybeanfits better
  3. Cocoafits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, milk. 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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