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Soup

Scotch Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with Scotch barley, veal, onions, celery, turnips, and seasoned with salt, cayenne, and port.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Rinse the Scotch barley in clean water.

  2. In a stewpan, combine the barley and knuckle of veal, then cover with cold water.

  3. Slowly bring to a boil, skimming off any foam.

  4. Add the onions and simmer for 2 hours.

  5. Skim again, then add the sliced celery and turnips.

Season and finish

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and let it stew for 1.5 hours.

  2. Remove the meat and serve the broth.

  3. If serving the veal, take 2 pints of broth, add flour while stirring, and bring to a boil.

  4. Add cayenne pepper and port, boil for 2 minutes, then strain over the veal.

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long simmering, giving body.
Veal knuckle
Adds meat flavour and gelatin, enriching the broth's body and savouriness.
Onions
Build savoury sweetness and aroma as they soften during the long simmer.
Celery
Contributes aromatic, vegetal flavour that deepens as it stews.
Flour
Thickens the veal sauce when stirred into boiling broth, giving it body.
Port
Adds sweetness and depth of flavour to the sauce.

The step that matters

Adding flour to the broth for the veal sauce. Flour must be stirred in continuously while the broth is hot, or it clumps into lumps instead of thickening smoothly. Bringing it to a boil then fully cooks the flour, removing its raw taste and activating its thickening power.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, veal, celery, turnip, flour, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, veal, celery, turnip, flour, 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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