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Vegetable Soup

A preserved vegetable soup made with lima beans, rice, barley, carrots, onions, potato, red pepper, wheat flour, salt, and stock.

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

  1. Soak the lima beans and rice for 12 hours.

  2. Cook the pearl barley for 2 hours.

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

  4. Cut the blanched vegetables into small cubes.

Make the soup

  1. Mix the lima beans, rice, barley, carrots, onions, potato, and red pepper thoroughly.

  2. Make a smooth paste with the wheat flour and blend it into the soup stock.

  3. Boil the mixture for 3 minutes and add the coarse sea salt.

Fill and seal

  1. Pour the stock over the vegetable mixture and fill glass jars or enameled tin cans three-fourths full.

  2. Partially seal the glass jars and cap the tin cans.

Sterilize

  1. Sterilize for 90 minutes using a hot-water bath, 75 minutes with a water-seal or 5-pound steam-pressure outfit, or 45 minutes in a pressure cooker.

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. Barley + wheattop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together185 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Hold their shape and add body and starch to the soup.
Rice
Releases starch as it cooks, adding body and thickening the soup.
Pearl barley
Adds a chewy texture that holds up through long cooking.
Wheat flour
Thickens the stock as its starch swells when heated.
Potato
Adds starch that softens and gives the soup a fuller body.
Onions
Contribute savory aroma and sweetness as they cook.

The step that matters

Make a smooth paste with the wheat flour and blend it into the soup stock.. Flour added dry clumps in liquid because its outer layer hydrates before the inside. Mixing it into a smooth paste first lets the starch disperse evenly, so it thickens the stock without lumps.

Swap the lima beans

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

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

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