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Barley Broth

A clear broth made from mutton, ham, onion, turnip, and barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine the mutton, ham, onion, turnip, and cold water.

  2. Cook over medium heat for 3 hours.

  3. Strain the broth, cool it, and skim off the fat.

Finish the soup

  1. Season with pepper and salt, then return to the pot.

  2. Add the soaked barley and simmer gently for 30 minutes.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 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 broth as its starch softens during gentle simmering, and gives the soup body and chew.
Mutton
Releases collagen and flavor into the water during long cooking, enriching the broth.
Ham
Adds savory, smoky depth to the broth as it simmers.
Turnip
Contributes mild sweetness and aroma as it cooks into the broth.
Onion
Adds aromatic sweetness and savory background to the broth.

The step that matters

Adding the barley. Barley should be added only after the broth is strained and seasoned, then simmered gently. Boiling hard can break the grains apart and cloud the broth, and the starch will keep thickening it the longer it sits in the hot liquid.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against mutton, ham, turnip, barley, pepper, parsley. 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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