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Haricot Bean Soup

A soup made with haricot beans, stock, milk, butter, onion, celery, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Haricot Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the beans and soak them in water for 12 hours.

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan, add the sliced onion and celery, and fry for a few minutes without browning.

  2. Add the soaked beans, cover closely, and let them steam for 15 to 20 minutes.

  3. Add the stock or water and 1 teaspoon of salt, then simmer until tender (2 to 3 hours).

  4. Strain and rub the vegetables through a wire sieve.

  5. Return to the stewpan, add the milk, and bring to a boil.

  6. Season to taste 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. 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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Onion + celerytop 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

Haricot beans
Provide the bulk of the soup and, once softened and rubbed through a sieve, its body and thickness.
Butter
Fat that softens the onion and celery without browning them, adding richness.
Milk
Added at the end for a smooth, creamy finish and mild sweetness.
Stock or water
Liquid that cooks the beans until tender and forms the soup base.

The step that matters

Simmering the beans until tender. Dried haricot beans need a long, gentle simmer to soften fully; if they are underdone, the sieved soup will be grainy and thin. Adding salt at this stage is in the record, so keep the simmer steady rather than a hard boil.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, butter, onion, celery, 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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