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Vegetable SouP

A barley and vegetable soup thickened with milk and eggs, served with fried bread.

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

Why it works: Barley and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Vegetable SouP

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pearl barley and soak for 30 minutes.

  2. Drain and place in a saucepan.

Simmer the soup

  1. Add the onion, celery, turnip, salt, pepper, water, and milk.

  2. Bring to a boil.

  3. Reduce heat and simmer until vegetables are soft.

  4. Strain, mashing as many vegetables through as possible.

  5. Return the soup to the saucepan.

Thicken and serve

  1. Stir in 1 cup of milk and the beaten eggs.

  2. Cook gently, stirring constantly, until the soup thickens.

  3. Serve with fried bread.

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. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  4. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Soaked and simmered, it softens and adds body and thickness to the soup.
Milk
Adds creaminess and richness to the soup base.
Eggs
When beaten in and gently heated, they set and thicken the soup.
Turnip
Softens during simmering, contributing mild flavour and body to the soup.

The step that matters

Cook gently after adding the eggs. Egg proteins set when heated, so high heat or boiling can curdle the eggs and leave the soup grainy. Gentle heat with constant stirring thickens it smoothly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, celery, turnip, pepper, milk, egg, bread):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Asparagusfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, celery, turnip, pepper, milk, egg, bread. 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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