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Receipt for a Very Cheap Soup

A cheap soup made with barley meal, red herrings, and Indian corn, seasoned with salt, pepper, vinegar, and sweet herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and corn match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 128 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Receipt for a Very Cheap Soup

portions of 20 ounces

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Combine 8 gallons of water and 5 lb of barley meal in a large pot.

  2. Boil the mixture until it reaches a thick jelly consistency.

  3. Season with salt, pepper, vinegar, sweet herbs, and the pounded red herrings.

Prepare and add the corn

  1. Soak 3 lb of Indian corn in water and wood ashes for 10-12 hours.

  2. Boil the soaked corn until the kernels swell and burst.

  3. Stir the samp into the soup.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately in portions of 20 ounces.

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.

  1. Barley + corntop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  2. Pepper + corntop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,324 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Pepper + vinegartop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,814 recipes

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

  5. Barley + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together102 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley meal
Thickens the water into a rich, jelly-like soup body as it boils.
Red herrings
Adds a strong, salty, savoury fish flavour that seasons the whole pot.
Indian corn (samp)
Adds chewy, starchy body once its kernels swell and burst during boiling.

The step that matters

Boiling the barley mixture to a thick jelly. Barley meal thickens as its starch gelatinises during boiling. Stopping too early leaves the soup thin, while overcooking can make it stick to the pot and scorch, so stir steadily.

“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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