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Barley Broth

A hearty beef broth with pearl barley, onions, parsley, potatoes, thyme, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and thyme match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 9,057 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the beef in a large pot with the water.

  2. Add the pearl barley, chopped onions, minced parsley, sliced potatoes, thyme, pepper, and salt.

  3. Simmer steadily for 3 hours, stirring often to prevent burning, and do not let it boil.

  4. Always stir with a wooden spoon.

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. Parsley + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together9,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Onion + potatotop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together9,023 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  5. Parsley + potatotop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,855 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Shin of beef
Slow simmering breaks down its connective tissue, enriching the broth with body and savory flavor.
Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the broth and its chewy grains give the soup substance.
Onions
As they soften during simmering, they add sweetness and a mellow aroma to the broth.
Potatoes
They break down partly as they cook, adding starch that gives the broth more body.

The step that matters

Simmer gently without boiling. A hard boil toughens meat proteins and makes the broth cloudy, while steady gentle heat keeps the beef tender and the broth clear. Frequent stirring keeps the barley and potatoes from settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beef, barley, parsley, potato, thyme, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against beef, barley, parsley, potato, thyme, 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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