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Cream of Barley Soup

A barley soup made with milk, stock, and egg yolks, seasoned with salt and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Cream of Barley Soup

Why it works: Barley and pepper work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 897 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream of Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Scald the barley.

  2. Drain the barley.

  3. Cover the barley with fresh boiling water.

  4. Boil the barley for three hours.

  5. Strain the barley.

Make the soup

  1. In a pot, bring the milk and stock to a boil.

  2. Add the strained barley, salt, and pepper to the pot.

Finish and serve

  1. Lightly beat the egg yolks.

  2. Place the beaten egg yolks in a soup tureen.

  3. Pour the boiling soup over the egg yolks.

  4. Serve immediately.

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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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

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

  2. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

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

  4. Veal + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,049 recipes

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

  5. Milk + peppertop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together26,984 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Simmered for hours until soft, it thickens the soup and gives it body.
Milk
Forms the creamy base of the soup and adds richness and mild sweetness.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the soup when poured in hot, adding smoothness and body.
Veal or white stock
Supplies the savoury liquid base that carries the flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Pouring the boiling soup over the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken when gently heated. Adding them to very hot soup while whisking helps them set smoothly, but pouring too fast or without beating can scramble them into lumps.

“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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