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Navy Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from navy beans, pork, vegetables, and seasoned with salt, pepper, celery seed, served over fried toast.

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 ↓

Navy Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

Make the soup

  1. Boil the soaked beans in a pot with the pork and vegetables for five hours.

  2. Remove the pork and vegetables from the pot.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  4. Return the liquid to the fire.

  5. Add black pepper to the liquid.

  6. Add more salt if necessary to the liquid.

  7. Let the liquid boil once.

  8. Tie the celery seed in a thin muslin bag.

  9. Add the muslin bag with celery seed to the vegetables.

Serve

  1. In a well-heated tureen, place small pieces of fried toast.

  2. Pour the soup over the fried toast.

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

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

  4. Beans + porktop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,000 recipes

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

  5. Pork + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,121 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

Navy beans
Provide the main body and starch that thickens the soup when pressed through a sieve.
Pork
Adds savoury, rich flavour to the cooking liquid as it simmers with the beans.
Vegetables
Contribute flavour and body to the broth before they are removed and sieved.

The step that matters

Press the mixture through a sieve. Pressing the cooked beans and vegetables breaks down their starchy cell walls, which is what gives the soup its smooth, thick body. Pushing too little or straining out too thoroughly leaves it thin or grainy.

Swap the beans

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, pepper, celery. 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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