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Haricot Bean Soup and Bacon

A bean soup made with haricot beans, bacon, onion, black pepper, and coarse sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Beans and onion match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,242 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Haricot Bean Soup and Bacon

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the haricot beans overnight in plenty of cold water.

  2. Boil the soaked beans until half cooked, then strain off the water.

Make the soup

  1. Add fresh boiling water to the beans in a smaller quantity.

  2. Insert two cloves into the onion and add it to the pot along with the bacon.

  3. Season with black pepper and coarse sea salt to taste.

  4. Boil until the beans and bacon are fully cooked.

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

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

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

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

  3. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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 thicken it as their starches soften during cooking.
Bacon
Adds smoky, savoury fat that flavours the broth as it cooks.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and depth to the broth as it cooks.

The step that matters

Boil the soaked beans until half cooked, then strain off the water. Beans can ferment or taste bitter if the cooking water is kept, and the first boil removes compounds that cause digestive discomfort. Starting the second cook with fresh boiling water helps the beans cook evenly and keeps the broth clean.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Spinachfits better
  3. Tomatofits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, 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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