Skip to main content
Main

Vegetable Soup

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

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓
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.

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

Fill and cover

  1. Fill glass jars or enameled tin cans three-fourths full with the vegetable mixture.

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

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

  4. Pour the stock over the vegetables in the jars or cans and partially seal them.

Process

  1. Sterilize for 90 minutes using a hot-water bath, 75 minutes with a water-seal or 5-lb. 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
Provide starchy body and substance that hold their shape after long soaking and sterilizing.
Rice
Absorbs liquid and softens, thickening the soup and adding body.
Pearl barley
Adds chewy texture and thickens the broth as its starch releases during cooking.
Carrots
Contribute sweetness, color, and firm texture that holds through processing.
Onions
Add savory depth and aroma as they soften and release their sugars.
Wheat flour
Thickens the stock into a smooth, body-giving base when blended and boiled.

The step that matters

Sterilize for the full time. Sterilizing must reach a time and temperature that destroys harmful microorganisms in low-acid, dense vegetable mixtures. Shorter processing can leave survivors that spoil the jars, so follow the time for your method exactly.

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.

More vegetable soup recipes

Spring 46Beef 45Winter 31French 11Lentil 9Clear 8 See all 425 →

You might also like

Potato CroquettesPotato Croquettes255 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesRice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesPotato RollsPotato Rolls78 recipes