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Simple Method of Making Barley Broth

A barley broth made with barley, onions, water, dripping or bacon fat, oatmeal, spices, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Simple Method of Making Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley broth

  1. Wash the barley in cold water.

  2. Add the barley and sliced onions to 5 quarts of water.

  3. Boil gently for 1 hour.

  4. Pour the boiled mixture into a pan.

Make the soup

  1. In a saucepan, melt the dripping or fat bacon.

  2. Stir in the oatmeal and rub together until it forms a paste.

  3. Gradually add the barley broth by spoonfuls.

  4. Stir until the mixture boils.

  5. Mix the spices in a teacup.

  6. Add a little of the spice mixture to the soup.

  7. Pour the rest of the spice mixture into the soup.

  8. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  9. Add salt to taste.

  10. Serve.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

  2. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Barley + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Oatmeal
Forms a paste with the melted fat that is then thinned into the broth, adding thickness.
Beef or mutton dripping
Carries flavour and richness, and helps the oatmeal form a smooth paste.
Sliced onions
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma to the broth as it boils.

The step that matters

Adding the oatmeal paste to the broth. Adding the broth to the oatmeal paste slowly, by spoonfuls, keeps the starch smooth. Dumping it in at once can form lumps that are hard to break up.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, beef, celery, pepper):

  1. Carrotfits better
  2. Leekfits better
  3. Turnipfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, beef, celery, 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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