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Thick Vegetable Soup

A hearty soup made with pearl barley, water, thick stock, and diced vegetables.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Thick Vegetable Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the pearl barley, cover it with water and bring to a boil.

  2. Pour off the first water.

  3. Add 1 quart of fresh water and let it simmer gently for 2 hours.

Add the vegetables

  1. Scald the diced turnips, carrots, onions and cabbage in boiling water.

  2. Add the thick stock and the scalded vegetables to the barley.

  3. Simmer until nearly done.

Finish the soup

  1. Add the diced potatoes and celery, along with salt and pepper to taste.

  2. Cook for an additional 30 minutes, or until done.

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. Carrot + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + cabbagetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together897 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the soup as it simmers and gives it a chewy, hearty body.
Thick stock from clear soup
Adds body and savory depth as the base liquid for the soup.
Potatoes
Hold their shape during simmering and add starch that thickens the broth slightly.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and color while keeping their texture through long cooking.

The step that matters

Pouring off the first water after boiling the barley. Boiling and discarding the first water removes surface impurities and loose starch from the grain, keeping the soup clean-tasting and clear rather than cloudy or bitter.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, turnip, carrot, cabbage, potato, celery, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, turnip, carrot, cabbage, potato, celery, pepper. 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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