Name: Potage Perlé Aux Profiteroles En Surprise
Ingredients: 1 cup pearl barley; 4 cups chicken broth; 1 cup heavy cream; Salt to taste; Pepper to taste; 12 profiteroles

Why it works: Barley and chicken work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 265 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Potage Perlé Aux Profiteroles En Surprise

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

Rinse the pearl barley under cold water.
In a pot, combine the barley and chicken broth; bring to a boil.
Reduce heat and simmer until the barley is tender, about 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

Stir in the heavy cream, and season with salt and pepper.
Serve the soup hot, placing a profiterole in each bowl.

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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together265 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).
Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together897 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Chicken + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together19,958 recipes

Shared aroma: piperonal (bitter, coconut).
Cream + peppertop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together21,449 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
Chicken + creamtop 23% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together6,241 recipes

Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

Cream and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 21,449 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley: Becomes tender during simmering, giving the soup its body and chewy texture.
Chicken broth: Cooks the barley and forms the liquid base of the soup.
Heavy cream: Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the broth.

“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.