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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, carrots, onions, herbs, and stock, finished with egg yolks, milk, peas, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,053 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Cook barley, carrots, onions, parsley, and herbs in white stock for 3 hours.

  2. Stir in egg yolks and hot milk, then press through a sieve.

Finish and serve

  1. Before serving, add cooked green peas, pepper, and salt.

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. Carrot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,053 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

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

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

  3. Carrot + peppertop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,555 recipes

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

  4. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

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

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Barley
Thickens the stock and gives the soup body and a chewy texture.
Egg yolks
Enrich the soup and thicken it slightly with milk as it is gently heated.
White stock
Forms the liquid base that carries the flavour of the vegetables and herbs.
Hot milk
Adds richness and a smooth, mellow body to the soup.
Green peas
Add sweetness and a fresh colour and texture at the end.

The step that matters

Stirring in egg yolks and hot milk. Egg yolks can curdle or turn grainy if the soup is too hot when they are added. Stirring them in gently with hot, not boiling, liquid lets them thicken smoothly.

Swap the peas

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, carrot, onion, parsley, egg, milk, pepper):

  1. Beansfits better
  2. Chickpeafits better
  3. Lentilsfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, carrot, onion, parsley, egg, milk, 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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