Skip to main content
Main

Haricot Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with haricot beans, bone stock, onions, milk, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the haricot beans for 1 to 2 hours.

Make the soup

  1. Put the beans into a saucepan with the bone stock, onions, and white peppercorns.

  2. Boil for 4 hours.

  3. Rub the mixture through a sieve back into the saucepan.

  4. Add the milk and season with salt and pepper, stirring until it boils.

  5. Stir in the butter just before serving for added flavor.

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

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

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

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

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

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

  4. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

  5. Onion + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together42,912 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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 thickening starch once softened and pureed through the sieve.
Bone stock
Supplies the savory liquid base and deep meaty flavor for the soup.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth as they cook down into the broth.
Milk
Adds creaminess and softens the soup's flavor and texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel when stirred in at the end.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked beans and onions through a sieve breaks down their starch and fibre, creating a smooth, thick texture. Skipping or rushing this step leaves the soup grainy and thin.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, milk, pepper, butter. 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.

You might also like

German Style String BeansGerman Style String Beans7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes