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Black Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked black beans, water, a beef or veal bone, celery, red pepper, onion, and optional force meat balls.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the black beans overnight.

  2. Combine the soaked beans and a large quantity of water in a pot.

  3. Add the beef or veal bone and stir frequently.

  4. Cook until the mixture reduces to a pulp, then strain through a colander.

Season and simmer

  1. Return the strained mixture to the pot and add celery, red pepper, and onion.

  2. Simmer for three to four hours before serving for best flavor.

  3. Add force meat balls for an extra touch, 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.

  1. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  5. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 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

Black beans
Form the body and thick pulp of the soup once cooked and strained.
Beef or veal bone
Adds savory depth and body to the broth as it simmers.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory flavor to the simmering base.

The step that matters

Cooking the beans down to a pulp. Beans must cook until fully soft so they break down and thicken the soup when strained. Undercooked beans stay grainy and the strained base will be thin and gritty.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Beansthe original
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Walnutfits less well
  4. Black-eyed peafits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, celery, pepper, onion, meat. 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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