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Cream of Dried Bean Soup

A creamy soup made from dried beans, milk, butter, flour, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Cream of Dried Bean Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the beans

  1. Soak the beans overnight.

  2. Cook the beans with the bay leaves and parsley until tender.

  3. Drain the beans and press them through a sieve.

Make the soup

  1. Add the milk and one cup of the cooking water; bring to a boil.

  2. Thicken the soup with the blended flour and butter.

  3. Stir in the onion juice and season with salt and pepper.

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

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

  2. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Beans + parsleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,376 recipes

    Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

  5. Parsley + oniontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans
Form the bulk of the soup and give it body once pressed through a sieve.
Milk
Adds creaminess and a soft, rich texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat and richness, and helps bind the flour into a smooth thickener.
Flour
Thickens the soup as it is cooked with the butter and liquid.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with the blended flour and butter. Flour must be blended smoothly with butter before it goes in, otherwise lumps form. Flour starch thickens only when heated in liquid, so the soup should be kept at a boil briefly to cook out the raw flour taste and reach full thickness.

Swap the onion

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

  1. Shallotfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, parsley, milk, butter, flour, 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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