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Lamb Barley Soup

"This is a hearty soup that is good for cold winter days. Lamb and vegetables are cooked in a beefy broth with chewy barley. You can add more vegetables if you like; this is very flexible. Serve by itself or with your favorite main dish."

By allrecipes · From Open Recipes · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Lamb and barley share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and 74 recipes mention both. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

The recipe

8 servings
Prep20 min
Cook1 hr

Ingredients

Directions

Method written by CompKitchen from the ingredient list. Not the original author's method, not kitchen-tested.

  1. Set a large pot over medium-high heat. Add the ground lamb and brown it for about 8 minutes, breaking it up, until no pink remains and it reaches 160°F (71°C) inside.

  2. Add the chopped onion and cook for about 4 minutes, stirring, until softened.

  3. Stir in the chopped carrots and celery and cook for about 3 minutes.

  4. Add the diced tomatoes with their juices, the water, the beef consomme, the condensed tomato soup, the barley, the chili powder and the ground black pepper. Stir well.

  5. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce to low, partly cover, and simmer for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the barley is tender.

  6. If the soup is too thick, stir in a splash of water before serving hot.

By allrecipes. Recipe from Open Recipes.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Lamb + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together74 recipes

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

  2. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together10,172 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Lamb + beeftop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together896 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-nonadienal (fatty, green).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

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

  5. Celery + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together16,001 recipes

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

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

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, tomato, beef, carrot, celery, barley, pepper):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  3. Asparagusabout as good a flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, tomato, beef, carrot, celery, barley, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).