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Cheap Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with barley, onions, turnips, carrots, oatmeal, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 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 ↓

Cheap Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Bring 6 quarts of water to a boil in a large pot.

  2. Add 6 ounces of Scotch barley and 6-8 peeled onions.

  3. Optionally, add 2-3 chopped turnips and carrots.

  4. Boil for 1.5 hours, then strain the mixture.

Make the thickened soup

  1. In the hot pot, melt 2-3 ounces of dripping or pot-top.

  2. Stir in ¼ pound of oatmeal until it forms a smooth paste.

  3. Gradually return the strained barley, water, and onions to the pot, stirring well until it boils.

  4. Add a small handful of picked parsley, a few marigold blossoms, and 1 teaspoon of ground pepper.

  5. Boil for an additional 15-20 minutes.

  6. Stir in 3 teaspoons of salt and serve.

  7. If too thick, add a little cold milk.

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. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Turnip + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,842 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Releases starch as it simmers, giving the soup body and a thick, hearty texture.
Oatmeal
Mixed with fat into a paste, it thickens the soup further and adds a grainy body.
Onions
Break down during the long boil, adding sweetness and savoury depth to the broth.
Dripping or pot-top
Fat that carries flavour and gives the soup a rich mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stirring the oatmeal into the melted fat. Stirring the oatmeal into the fat until smooth coats the grains so they disperse evenly when liquid is added. Adding it lumpy or straight into liquid leaves clumps that never fully thicken the soup.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, turnip, carrot, parsley, pepper, milk. 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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