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Broad Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with broad beans, stock, bacon, onion, parsley, flour, butter, salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Broad Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Boil the beans in salted water for 10 to 15 minutes.

  2. Drain the beans and remove the skins.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the bacon in small pieces, onion, and parsley.

  3. Sauté for about 5 minutes.

  4. Add the stock.

  5. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  6. Add the beans.

  7. Simmer gently until the beans are tender, about 20 to 30 minutes.

  8. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve back into the stewpan.

  9. Add the flour blended with a little stock or water.

  10. Stir until smooth.

  11. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and a pinch of sugar.

Serve

  1. Serve with croutons or small slices of fried or toasted bread on the side.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  4. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

Broad beans
Provide the main body and flavour of the soup once puréed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds richness and fat to the onion and bacon as they cook.
Flour
Thickens the soup so it becomes smooth and lightly body-rich.
Bacon or ham
Adds savoury, smoky flavour to the stock base.

The step that matters

Rubbing the soup through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked beans through a fine sieve breaks down their cell walls and removes skins and fibres, giving a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, ham, parsley, flour, butter, pepper, sugar):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Okrafits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, ham, parsley, flour, butter, pepper, sugar. 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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