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Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup of lima beans, tomatoes, corn, snap beans, okra, ham, and egg yolk thickened with flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Vegetable Soup

Why it works: Lima beans and beans match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 156 recipes. Both carry 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells green bell pepper, earthy. The science ↓

Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Combine lima beans, tomatoes, dried corn, snap beans, dried okra, and water in a large pot.

  2. Add the slices of ham and bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Season with salt and pepper.

  5. Remove the ham before serving.

Thicken and finish

  1. Thicken the soup with egg yolk and a little flour.

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. Lima beans + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together156 recipes

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

  2. Beans + okratop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together66 recipes

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

  3. Tomato + beanstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,713 recipes

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

  4. Lima beans + okratop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together64 recipes

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

  5. Corn + beanstop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,211 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Lima beans
Soft starchy beans that thicken the broth slightly and add body as they simmer.
Tomatoes
Add acidity and liquid that build the soup's savory, rounded flavor.
Ham
Releases salty, smoky flavor into the water during simmering.
Egg yolk
Enriches and thickens the soup, giving it a smoother, richer texture.
Flour
Thickens the soup by absorbing liquid and forming a light starch network.

The step that matters

Thicken the soup with egg yolk and a little flour. Egg yolk can curdle or turn grainy if it meets boiling liquid directly. Whisking it with flour and a little hot broth first, then stirring it in off the heat, helps it blend smoothly.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lima beans, corn, beans, okra, ham, pepper, egg):

  1. Capsicumfits better
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Spinachfits about as well
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lima beans, corn, beans, okra, ham, pepper, egg. 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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