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Soup

Cream of Barley

A creamy soup made from veal, barley, water, salt, and 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 the meat and barley

  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 salt.

Simmer

  1. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for 2 hours.

Strain and finish

  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.

  4. 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 cutlet
Provides the meat flavour and body that the soup is built on.
Barley
Thickens the soup and gives it a smooth, starchy body once pulped.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pounded mixture through the sieve. Pushing the pulp through fine mesh breaks it into small particles that thicken the liquid evenly. Skipping or rushing this leaves the soup grainy and thin, so the body depends on working it through slowly with the spoon.

“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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