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Dried Bean Soup

A hearty soup made with dried white beans, beef, bacon, celery, and toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and celery 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 ↓

Dried Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the dried white beans overnight.

  2. Cut the beef and bacon into small pieces.

  3. Place the beef and bacon in a soup pot with the broken bones.

  4. Season the meat with pepper.

  5. Add 6 quarts of water to the pot.

  6. Bring the mixture to a boil.

  7. Skim off the scum that rises to the surface.

  8. Drain the soaked beans.

Simmer and serve

  1. Add the beans to the pot along with the celery or celery seed.

  2. Boil slowly until the meat shreds and the beans dissolve.

  3. Strain the soup into a tureen.

  4. Add small squares of toasted bread to the soup.

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. Pepper + celerytop 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
Break down during long simmering to thicken the soup and give it body.
Beef
Releases flavor and gelatin into the broth as it simmers, and shreds when fully cooked.
Bacon
Adds smoky, salty fat that enriches the broth's flavor.
Toasted bread
Adds crisp texture and absorbs some broth when served in the soup.

The step that matters

Skim off the scum that rises to the surface. Coagulated proteins and impurities rise as the liquid heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and free of off-flavors.

“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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