Why it works: Barley and meat work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 224 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓
Barley Soup
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Combine barley and water in a porcelain kettle and bring to a slow boil on the back of the stove.
Add soup meat and vegetables to another kettle.
Start cooking the soup meat two hours before serving.
Finish the soup
Gradually add strained soup stock as the barley thickens.
Season with coarse sea salt to taste.
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.
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Barley + meattop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together224 recipes
Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Barley
- Its starch thickens the soup as it cooks and absorbs liquid, giving body to the broth.
- Soup meat
- Releases flavor and gelatin into the stock during long simmering, adding richness and body.
- Vegetables
- Add sweetness, aroma and flavor to the broth as they cook.
The step that matters
Gradually add strained soup stock as the barley thickens. Barley keeps absorbing liquid and thickening as it cooks. Adding stock in portions lets you control the consistency and avoids a pot that becomes too thick or starchy.
“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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