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Haricot-Bean Soup

A bean soup made with haricot beans, water, pepper, salt, baking soda, dripping, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 4,733 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Haricot-Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

Make the soup

  1. Put the soaked beans in 1 quart of cold water with pepper, salt, baking soda, and dripping.

  2. Boil for about 3 hours.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Boil again, adding milk to achieve desired consistency.

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 + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,733 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Pepper + milktop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Haricot beans
Provide the main body and starch that thicken the soup when cooked and sieved.
Dripping
Adds fat, which carries flavour and gives the soup a richer mouthfeel.
Baking soda
Raises the pH, which helps the beans soften during long boiling.
Milk
Added at the end to adjust thickness and add creaminess.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked beans through a sieve breaks down their starchy cell walls, creating a smooth texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pepper, 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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