Name: Nutritious Vegetable Soups
Ingredients: 1 quart of water; 1 cup dried beans (black, kidney, lima, navy, pinto, or soy); 1 cup dried or canned corn; 1 cup whole grains (oats, barley, rice, corn); 2 tablespoons corn flour or rice flour; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; Seasonings (celery salt, chili pepper, catsup, vinegar) to taste; Flavor vegetables (onion, celery, carrot, okra, tomato)

Why it works: Barley and rice 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 ↓

Nutritious Vegetable Soups

Ingredients

1 quart of water
1 cup dried beans (black, kidney, lima, navy, pinto, or soy)
1 cup dried or canned corn
1 cup whole grains (oats, barley, rice, corn)
2 tablespoons corn flour or rice flour
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
Seasonings (celery salt, chili pepper, catsup, vinegar) to taste
Flavor vegetables (onion, celery, carrot, okra, tomato)

Directions

In a large pot, bring 1 quart of water to a boil.
Add 1 cup of dried beans and cook until tender.
Stir in 1 cup of corn and 1 cup of whole grains.
Mix in 2 tablespoons of corn flour or rice flour to thicken.
Season with salt, pepper, and other condiments to taste.
Add flavor vegetables and simmer until all ingredients are cooked through.

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.

Barley + ricetop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together568 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Beans + corntop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,211 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Beans + barleytop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together106 recipes

Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).
Beans + ricetop 4% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together1,017 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Pepper + celerytop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Dried beans: Provide the main body and protein-rich bulk of the soup.
Whole grains: Add chewy texture and body as they soften in the simmering broth.
Corn flour or rice flour: Thickens the broth as its starch swells with heat.
Corn: Adds sweetness and soft texture to the soup.

The step that matters

Mix in the flour to thicken. Starch needs to be fully hydrated and heated to thicken evenly; adding it to a boiling liquid without stirring well can cause lumps, and it must simmer long enough for the starch to swell fully.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beans, corn, oats, barley, rice, pepper, vinegar):

Cinnamonfits about as well
Cuminfits about as well
Turmericfits about as well
Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beans, corn, oats, barley, rice, pepper, vinegar. 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.

Tomato Soup526 recipes

Corn Fritters203 recipes

Carrot Soup134 recipes

Cream of Celery Soup113 recipes

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Nutritious Vegetable Soups