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Mice or Barley Soup

A chicken soup with barley or rice, seasoned with salt and pepper, served with butter and mashed potatoes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and potato match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 165 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Mice or Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Cut up a chicken and place it in a pot with cold water or weak broth.

  2. Add salt and barley (or rice).

Simmer and serve

  1. Cover and let it simmer for one hour.

  2. Skim the surface to clear it, then add pepper to taste.

  3. Serve the chicken with butter and a dusting of pepper, alongside mashed potatoes.

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 + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together165 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Pepper + potatotop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,305 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + potatotop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,456 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

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

  5. Barley + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Thickens the broth slightly as it cooks and gives the soup a chewy texture.
Chicken (in the method)
Provides the main protein and flavor, releasing savory juices into the broth as it simmers.

The step that matters

Skim the surface. Foam and fat rise to the top during simmering. Skimming them off keeps the broth clear and prevents a greasy, cloudy finish.

Swap the potato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, pepper, butter):

  1. Leekfits about as well
  2. Potatothe original
  3. Capsicumfits about as well
  4. Asparagusfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, pepper, butter. 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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