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Cream of Barley

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Turnip and barley 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 ↓

Cream of Barley

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a pot, combine beef stock, onions, celery, and turnip.

  2. Add barley and simmer until cooked.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve or tamis.

  4. Return the strained mixture to the pot and add butter and a little flour.

  5. Stir in the milk, then season with salt and pepper to taste.

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 + barleytop 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. Celery + barleytop 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

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against celery, turnip, barley, butter, flour, milk, pepper. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

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