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Puree of Bean Soup with Crusts

A thickened bean soup made from navy beans, stock, and seasonings, served with a buttery crust.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Puree of Bean Soup with Crusts

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make the soup stock by boiling meat and marrow bones in 1 gallon of water with assorted vegetables until reduced by half.

  2. Strain the stock and skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Boil the navy beans with a pinch of baking soda until soft, then mash them.

  2. Add the mashed beans to the soup stock and stir gently, ensuring it does not boil.

  3. Incorporate mustard, butter, parsley, and minced red pepper just before serving.

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. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Beans + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together852 recipes

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

  3. Onion + mustardtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,259 recipes

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

  4. Beans + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,242 recipes

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

  5. Mustard + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,588 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Soup stock
Forms the savory liquid base that carries the flavor of the whole soup.
Navy beans
Softened and mashed, they thicken the stock and give the soup its body.
Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.
Prepared mustard
Adds a sharp, pungent note that balances the richness of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the mashed beans without boiling. Mashed beans are starchy and can scorch on the bottom of the pot or turn gluey and grainy if the soup boils hard. Gentle heat keeps the puree smooth and evenly textured.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, butter, mustard, parsley, pepper):

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Lettucefits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, butter, mustard, parsley, pepper. 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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