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Lamb and Barley Soup

A hearty soup of lamb, barley, onions, carrots, celery, parsnips, wine, and stock.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 14 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

Time2 hours

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the lamb

  1. Place lamb in a large pot and cover with cold water.

  2. Add bay leaves and salt; bring to a boil.

  3. Simmer briskly for 2 hours.

Build the soup

  1. In a separate large stockpot, heat the olive oil.

  2. Add onions, carrots, celery, and parsnips; saute for 10-15 minutes.

  3. Add barley, cooked with its stock, chicken stock, white wine, oregano, and mint; bring to a boil.

  4. Simmer for 1 hour.

  5. Remove from heat, and season with salt, pepper, and lemon oil, to taste.

  6. Serve immediately.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

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. Carrot + parsniptop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together1,096 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isobutyl-3-methoxypyrazine (green bell pepper, earthy).

  4. Celery + parsniptop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together560 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  5. Carrot + barleytop 4% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together784 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Lamb stew meat
Provides the main meaty flavor, which deepens during the long simmer.
Onions
Sautéed to build a sweet, savory base for the soup.
Pearl barley
Simmers until tender, thickening the broth and adding chewy body.
Parsnips
Softened in the sauté, adding sweetness and body to the soup.
White wine
Adds acidity and aromatic depth to the broth.
Carrots
Softened in the sauté, adding sweetness and color.

The step that matters

Simmer the lamb briskly for 2 hours. A steady simmer lets the connective tissue in the stew meat break down into tender meat and gelatin, enriching the broth. Too weak a simmer leaves the lamb tough.

Flavor stand-ins for the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (lamb, meat, olive, carrot, celery, parsnip, barley):

  1. Potatobetter flavor fit
  2. Tomatobetter flavor fit
  3. Capsicumbetter flavor fit
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against lamb, meat, olive, carrot, celery, parsnip, barley. 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).

“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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