Why it works: Butter and milk 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 ↓
Bean Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Make the soup
Combine the beans, water, and piece of fat beef in a large pot.
Boil for 3 hours.
Remove the beef and strain the beans through a sieve.
Season the soup with pepper and coarse sea salt.
If the soup is too thin, stir in 1 tablespoon of flour.
Make the white sauce and finish
Melt 1 teaspoon of butter for the white sauce.
Add 1 teaspoon of flour to the melted butter.
Whisk in 1 pint of milk until thickened.
Add the white sauce to the soup.
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.
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Butter + milktop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together81,283 recipes
Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).
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Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together18,971 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + peppertop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together4,733 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
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Beans + flourtop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,080 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,134 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
- Beans
- Provide the main body and starch that give the soup its substance.
- Fat beef
- Adds savory, meaty flavor and fat to the broth as it simmers.
- Butter
- Carries the flour in the white sauce and adds richness.
- Flour
- Thickens the white sauce and, if added, the soup itself.
- Milk
- Forms the liquid base of the white sauce, adding creaminess and body.
The step that matters
Whisking the milk into the roux. Adding the milk gradually while whisking keeps the butter and flour mixture smooth; dumping it in at once can leave lumps that are hard to remove.
Swap the beans
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, pepper, flour, butter, sauce, milk):
- Beansthe original
- Chestnutfits about as well
- Almondfits about as well
- Sesamefits about as well
Fit is the average pairing score against beef, pepper, flour, butter, sauce, 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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