Why it works: Barley and meat work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 224 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Barley Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the barley
Combine the barley and water in a porcelain kettle.
Bring the mixture to a slow boil on the back of the stove.
Make the soup
In another kettle, add the soup meat and vegetables of your choice.
Cook the soup meat for two hours before adding the barley.
Add the barley to the soup.
As the barley thickens, gradually add strained soup stock.
Season with salt to taste.
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.
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Barley + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together224 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Barley
- Thickens the soup as its starch releases during simmering, giving body to the broth.
- Soup meat
- Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock during long cooking, enriching the broth.
The step that matters
Adding the barley to the soup. Barley thickens as it cooks and can absorb liquid and turn the soup gluey or too thick if added too early or without adding stock gradually. Adding it after the meat has cooked and adjusting with stock keeps the texture balanced.
“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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