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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, carrots, onions, herbs, stock, egg yolks, milk, and peas.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook barley, sliced carrots, sliced onions, parsley, and herbs in white stock for 3 hours.

  2. Stir in egg yolks and hot milk.

  3. Press the mixture through a sieve.

Serve

  1. Before serving, add cooked green peas, pepper, and salt.

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 + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Thickens the soup and gives it a hearty, chewy body as it cooks.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and help it turn creamy and smooth when stirred in.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the vegetables and herbs.
Milk
Adds richness and mellows the soup into a softer, creamier texture.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Onions
Build savoury depth and aroma during the long simmer.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks and hot milk. Egg yolks can curdle or scramble if the liquid is too hot or added too quickly. Stirring them in gradually off the heat, or with the hot milk added slowly, helps keep the soup smooth and creamy.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, carrot, onion, parsley, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, carrot, onion, parsley, egg, milk, 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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