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Vegetable Soup

A preserved soup made with lima beans, rice, barley, carrots, onions, potato, red pepper, flour, and stock, thickened and jarred.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the ingredients

  1. Soak the beans and rice overnight.

  2. Boil the barley for two hours.

  3. Blanch the carrots, onions, potato, and red pepper for 3 minutes, then cool them in cold water.

  4. Cut the vegetables into small cubes and mix them with the beans, rice, and barley.

Make the soup

  1. Make a smooth paste with the flour and stir it into the soup stock.

  2. Boil for three minutes and add the salt.

Jar and sterilize

  1. Fill jars three-quarters full with the vegetable mixture and top with the thickened soup stock.

  2. Seal the jars with rubbers and tops, adjusting the spring as needed.

  3. Sterilize the jars in a boiler for 1½ hours.

  4. Press down the spring and store the jars.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + potatotop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,107 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Barley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  5. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 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

Lima beans
Provide bulk and a starchy, creamy body as they soften during the long soak and cook.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and thickens the broth while adding body to the soup.
Pearl barley
Softens as it cooks, adding chew and thickening the broth.
Flour
Forms a smooth paste that thickens the soup stock.
Carrots
Add sweetness and firm texture that holds up through processing.

The step that matters

Sterilize the jars for 1½ hours. Low-acid vegetable mixtures can harbor spoilage bacteria. Sustained heat is needed to destroy them, and the jars must stay fully covered so the contents are properly heated throughout.

Swap the lima beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (rice, barley, carrot, onion, potato, pepper, flour):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Lentilsfits better
  3. Chickpeafits better
  4. Lima beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against rice, barley, carrot, onion, potato, pepper, flour. 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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