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Soup

Pearl Barley and Cream Soup

A soup made with pearl barley, butter, salt, and chicken consomme, simmered after soaking.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and chicken work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 265 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Pearl Barley and Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Soak the pearl barley in water for 12 hours.

Cook

  1. Boil the soaked barley in 1½ pints of water with butter and salt until soft.

  2. Drain the barley and add the chicken consomme.

  3. Bring to a boil, then simmer for 15 minutes, skimming as needed.

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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Butter + chickentop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together13,902 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Barley + buttertop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together481 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Forms the body of the soup and thickens it as its starch releases during simmering.
Chicken consomme
Supplies the main savoury flavour and liquid base for the soup.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the cooked barley.

The step that matters

Simmering after adding the consomme. Keeping the soup at a gentle simmer rather than a hard boil lets the barley stay tender without breaking apart, and skimming removes foam that would cloud the broth.

“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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