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Bean Soup

A hearty soup of navy beans simmered with salt pork, butter, and milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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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

6 to 8 per plate

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the beans

  1. Soak the navy beans overnight.

  2. In the morning, drain the beans and boil them slowly all day with the salt pork.

  3. Once cooked, rub the mixture through a sieve and return it to the stove.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the butter and milk, stirring until combined.

  2. Serve with conda crusts, 6 to 8 per plate.

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. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  3. Pork + milktop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,386 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4-heptenal (creamy, biscuit).

  4. Pork + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,933 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Beans + milktop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,266 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3,5-trimethylpyrazine (cocoa, roasted).

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 starchy structure that thickens the soup when cooked and puréed.
Salt pork
Adds savoury, smoky flavour and fat as it slowly cooks with the beans.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Milk
Adds moisture and creaminess, loosening the purée into a smooth soup.

The step that matters

Boiling the beans until fully tender. Beans must be completely soft before sieving, because undercooked starch granules stay firm and leave a grainy, uneven purée.

Swap the beans

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

  1. Peanutfits better
  2. Cocoafits better
  3. Soybeanfits better
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against pork, butter, 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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