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Barley Soup

A thick soup made from barley, stock, celery, salt, egg yolk, cream or milk, butter, and served with toasted bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and celery work together. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 571 recipes. Both carry 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol, which smells clove, smoky. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the base

  1. Boil the barley in the stock until it reduces to a pulp.

  2. Pass it through a fine sieve and return it to the heat.

  3. Add enough stock to achieve a cream-like consistency.

Season and finish

  1. Season with celery and salt, then bring to a boil.

  2. Remove from heat and stir in the beaten egg yolk mixed with cream or milk.

  3. Add a piece of butter and serve with a small slice of toasted bread.

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

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

  2. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  4. Barley + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Breaks down into starch that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Stock
Forms the liquid base and carries the flavour through the soup.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it gently as its proteins set with heat.
Cream or milk
Adds richness and a smooth, silky texture to the soup.
Butter
Adds fat for a rich flavour and a glossy finish.

The step that matters

Stir the egg yolk in off the heat. Egg yolk proteins set and can scramble if the soup is too hot. Removing the pan from the heat before stirring in the yolk and cream lets it thicken smoothly.

Swap the celery

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, egg, cream, butter, bread):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Capersfits about as well
  3. Parsleyfits about as well
  4. Celerythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, egg, cream, butter, bread. 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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