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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, onions, carrots, turnips, mutton, and ham, simmered for several hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine barley and water in a large pot.

  2. Add chopped onions, carrots, and turnips.

  3. Cook gently for 2 hours.

  4. Add the neck of mutton and lean ham.

  5. Season with salt to taste.

  6. Cook for an additional 2 hours.

  7. Add pepper just before serving.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Thickens the broth as its starch softens during long simmering, giving the soup body.
Neck of mutton
Releases fat and savory flavor into the broth during the long, gentle cooking.
Lean ham
Adds savory, salty depth to the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Build sweetness and aromatic flavor as they soften in the broth.
Carrots
Add natural sweetness and color, and hold their shape through the simmer.
Turnips
Contribute mild, slightly peppery flavor and soft body to the broth.

The step that matters

Cook gently for 2 hours. Barley and meat need a slow, low simmer so the starch thickens the broth and the mutton becomes tender without breaking apart or clouding the soup. A hard boil can toughen meat and make the broth cloudy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, carrot, turnip, mutton, ham, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, carrot, turnip, mutton, ham, 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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