Skip to main content
Main

English Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with beef, barley, onion, carrot, turnip, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and marjoram match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,979 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

English Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Make strong stock by boiling bones from a rib roast or steak with 1 pound of underdone beef in 3 pints of water for 6 hours.

  2. If using raw meat, combine 1 pound of chopped lean beef and cracked cooked bones.

  3. Stew for 4 hours.

  4. Let the stock cool.

  5. Remove the fat.

Make the broth

  1. Parboil the diced onion, carrot, and turnip, then drain them.

  2. In a soup kettle, combine the parboiled vegetables, soaked barley, and cold stock.

  3. Bring the mixture to a slow boil.

  4. Maintain the boil for 1 hour.

  5. Add parsley.

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. Parsley + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,979 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

  3. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Carrot + marjoramtop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together687 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Beef
Gives the broth its meaty flavor and body as its collagen softens during long simmering.
Barley
Swells as it cooks, thickening the broth and adding a chewy texture.
Onion
Adds sweetness and aroma as it softens in the broth.
Carrot
Adds sweetness and color as it softens in the broth.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body as it softens in the broth.

The step that matters

Remove the fat. Fat that is not removed after the stock cools will float as a greasy layer and make the broth taste heavy. Chilling the stock lets the fat solidify on top so it can be lifted off cleanly.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, carrot, turnip, barley, parsley, marjoram, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, carrot, turnip, barley, parsley, marjoram, 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.

More barley broth recipes

Scotch 26 See all 48 →

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes