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Barley Broth

A hearty veal and barley broth simmered with vegetables and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barley Broth

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat and vegetables

  1. Break the bones into splinters and chop the meat.

  2. Mince the vegetables and combine them in a soup kettle with the veal, bones, and water.

Simmer the stock

  1. Boil slowly for three hours until the liquid reduces by one-third.

  2. Strain the soup to remove fat and season with salt and pepper.

Cook the barley and finish

  1. Wash the barley and boil it in salted water for half an hour.

  2. Add the barley to the soup and cook gently for another half hour.

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. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 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

Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and flavour into the broth, giving body to the soup.
Scotch barley
Swells as it cooks, thickening the soup and giving it a chewy texture.
Beef bones
Add savory depth and gelatin to the stock as they simmer.

The step that matters

Straining the soup to remove fat. Fat rises to the surface as the stock simmers and cools. Skimming or straining it off before adding the barley keeps the soup clean-tasting and prevents it from feeling greasy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, beef, turnip, celery, parsley, egg, barley):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, beef, turnip, celery, parsley, egg, barley. 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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