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Cream of Barley

A veal and barley soup thickened with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and barley work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cream of Barley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Trim all fat from the veal cutlet and cut the lean meat into small pieces.

  2. Place the meat in a saucepan with 1 pint of cold water.

  3. Add the washed and soaked barley and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

  4. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours.

Strain and pulp

  1. Strain the liquid into a basin, then pound the meat and barley together in a mortar.

  2. Set a fine sieve over a basin and rub the pounded mixture through it with a wooden spoon.

  3. Pour the strained liquid over the sieve to help the pulp pass through.

Finish

  1. Once all has passed through, stir in 2 tablespoons of cream.

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. Veal + barleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Barley + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal
Supplies meat protein and savoury flavour that gives the soup its body.
Barley
Its starch thickens the liquid as it cooks and softens into the pulp.
Cream
Adds fat for richness and a smooth, mellow texture.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pulp through the fine sieve. Pressing the cooked meat and barley through a fine mesh breaks them into a smooth, even body. Skipping the sieve or using a coarse one leaves grit, and cream should be stirred in only after the pulp is smooth so it blends evenly.

“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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