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Scots Broth

A simple barley broth seasoned with salt, herbs, butter, and served with croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and butter work together. They rank in the top 20% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 481 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Scots Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the broth

  1. Boil water with soaked barley.

  2. Add salt to taste.

  3. Let boil for 2 hours, adding more water if it becomes too thick.

  4. Season with savory herbs or soup powder.

Finish and serve

  1. Stir in butter and serve with croutons.

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 + 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

Barley
Releases starch as it simmers, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the finished broth taste richer and feel smoother.

The step that matters

Adding more water during the 2-hour boil. Barley keeps absorbing liquid and releasing starch as it cooks, so the broth thickens steadily. Adding water when it gets too thick keeps the texture loose and prevents the barley from scorching on the bottom of the pot.

“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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