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Bean Soup

A hearty soup of dried white beans, beef shank, ham, and celery simmered with pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans in cold water overnight.

  2. In the morning, boil the beans in just enough water to cook them well, stirring slowly to prevent burning.

Make the soup

  1. In another pot, add the meat with 1 quart of water for every pound of meat and season with pepper.

  2. Add the celery and boil until the meat is tender and falls apart, skimming the surface as needed.

  3. Strain the liquid and return it to the pot, then add the boiled beans.

  4. Let the mixture boil together until thick, then strain again 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. Beef + peppertop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,971 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Beans + beeftop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked 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

Dried white beans
Form the body of the soup and thicken it as they break down during boiling.
Beef shank
Adds meaty flavour and richness to the broth as it simmers.
Boiled ham
Contributes savoury, smoky flavour to the broth.
Celery
Adds a mild, aromatic vegetable flavour to the broth.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans with stirring. Beans can scorch on the bottom of the pot, so stirring slowly while cooking in just enough water keeps them from burning and sticking.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, ham, 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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