Why it works: Veal and barley work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Cream of Barley
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Trim the fat from the veal cutlet and cut the lean meat into small pieces.
Place the meat in a saucepan with cold water, soaked barley, and salt.
Cook and strain
Boil for two hours, then strain the liquid.
Finish the soup
Pound the meat and barley together in a mortar, then rub through a sieve, adding some of the strained liquid.
Stir in the cream.
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.
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Veal + barleytop 23% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together162 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Barley + creamtop 25% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together301 recipes
Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).
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Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,202 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Veal cutlet
- Provides the meat flavour and body that gives the soup its savoury base.
- Barley
- Thickens the liquid as it cooks and, once pounded and sieved, gives the soup a smooth, creamy body.
- Cream
- Adds richness and a smooth, mellow texture to the finished soup.
The step that matters
Rubbing the meat and barley through a sieve. Pounding and sieving breaks the cooked meat and barley into fine particles and loosens them into the liquid, which gives the soup its smooth texture. Leaving lumps or skipping the sieve results in a grainy soup.
“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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