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Sheep's Head and Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with sheep's head, pig's feet, vegetables, barley, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and carrot 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 ↓

Sheep's Head and Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Crack the bones of the sheep's head and pig's feet, then wash them well.

Simmer the stock

  1. In a large pot, combine the sliced vegetables, herbs, and water, and cook gently for 5 hours.

  2. After 3 hours, add the tomatoes to the pot.

  3. If the liquid reduces to less than 5 quarts, replenish it with hot water from the kettle.

  4. After 5 hours, strain the soup, placing the bones and meat into a stock jar.

Finish the soup

  1. Season the clear soup and set it aside.

  2. Pulp the vegetables into the reserved soup for Saturday's dinner, season, cool, and skim off the fat.

  3. Return the pulped soup to the fire, add the soaked barley, and simmer 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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Turnip + barleytop 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. Carrot + barleytop 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

Sheep's head
Bones and meat release gelatin and flavor, giving the broth body and a rich taste.
Pig's feet
Their collagen turns to gelatin during long cooking, adding body and a silky mouthfeel.
Soup-barley
Its starch thickens the soup as it simmers and adds a soft, chewy texture.
Tomatoes
They add acidity and color, and their flavor balances the rich meat broth.
Turnips
Pulped into the soup, they add body and a mild, slightly sweet flavor.
Onions
Cooked slowly, they add sweetness and savory depth to the base.

The step that matters

Cool the pulped soup before skimming off the fat. As the soup cools, fat rises and solidifies on the surface, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skimming while hot leaves more fat dispersed in the liquid.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (onion, turnip, carrot, tomato, barley, pepper, sugar):

  1. Celeryfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Parsleyfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against onion, turnip, carrot, tomato, barley, pepper, sugar. 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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