Name: Quick Bean Soup
Ingredients: 2 cups baked beans; 4 tomatoes or 1-2 cans of tomatoes; 1 small onion, chopped; 1 large potato, peeled and diced; 1-2 teaspoons celery salt; 1 tablespoon butter; 1-2 teaspoons beef extract

Why it works: Beans and tomato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,713 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Quick Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the onion and potato in a pot until tender.
Add the tomatoes and baked beans, then cook for a few more minutes.
Rub the mixture through a strainer to create a smooth consistency.
Stir in the beef extract, butter, and celery salt.
Thin the soup with water or broth to reach a creamy 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.

Beans + tomatotop 1% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,713 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together9,023 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).
Tomato + celerytop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,377 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Beans + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together655 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).
Tomato + potatotop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together2,798 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

Baked beans: Provide the main body and starch that thicken the soup when puréed.
Tomatoes: Add acidity and liquid, giving the soup its base flavour and colour.
Potato: Adds starch that helps the soup turn creamy and smooth.
Butter: Adds fat and richness, giving a smoother mouthfeel and rounder flavour.
Beef extract: Adds savoury, meaty flavour to the soup.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, tomato, onion, potato, butter, beef):

Garlicfits better
Cuminfits better
Thymefits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, tomato, onion, potato, butter, beef. 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.