Skip to main content
Main

Scotch Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with Scotch barley, beef, onions, celery, and turnip.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Barley and turnip 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 ↓

Scotch Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the barley in cold water.

  2. In a soup pot, combine the barley and beef pieces, covering them with cold water.

Simmer the broth

  1. Bring to a boil, skimming the surface clean.

  2. Add the onions and simmer gently for about 2 hours.

  3. Skim off the fat, then add the celery and turnip.

  4. Season with salt and boil for an additional 1.5 hours.

  5. Remove the meat carefully and keep warm.

  6. Skim the broth well before serving.

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 + turniptop 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. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Beef + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long simmering, giving body.
Shin or leg of beef
Releases collagen and flavor into the broth during long simmering, enriching it.
Onions
Add savory sweetness and aroma as they soften into the broth.
Celery
Adds aromatic flavor to the broth as it cooks.
Turnip
Adds mild sweetness and body to the broth as it softens.

The step that matters

Skim the surface and fat. Foam and fat rising during the boil and simmer can make the broth cloudy and greasy. Skimming early and again before serving keeps it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, beef, celery, turnip):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, beef, celery, turnip. 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.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes