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Black Bean Soup

A hearty soup made from soaked black beans, water, onion, cloves, bay leaf, celery salt, butter, and seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Black Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the black beans overnight.

  2. Drain the beans, cover with cold water and bring to a boil.

  3. Drain again.

  4. Add 2 quarts of water to the beans.

Cook the soup

  1. Simmer gently for 1 hour.

  2. Add the onion with cloves, bay leaf, and celery salt.

  3. Cook slowly for another hour.

  4. Press the mixture through a sieve.

  5. Return it to the pot.

  6. Stir in the butter.

  7. Add boiling water if the soup is too thick.

  8. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Serve

  1. Slice the hard boiled eggs and lemon.

  2. Place them in a tureen with chopped parsley.

  3. Pour the boiling soup over the eggs and lemon.

  4. Serve with croutons.

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 + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  2. Celery + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,467 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Beans + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,159 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Black beans
Form the body of the soup when cooked and pressed through a sieve.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Hard boiled eggs
Add soft, mild protein pieces that contrast with the smooth soup.
Lemon
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, earthy beans.

The step that matters

Press the mixture through a sieve. Pressing cooked beans breaks their skins and softens the solids so the soup becomes smooth and thick. Skipping or rushing this leaves a grainy, uneven texture.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, clove, celery, butter, pepper, egg, lemon):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Spinachfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, clove, celery, butter, pepper, egg, lemon. 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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