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Soup

Barley Broth

A light soup made with barley broth, seasoned with celery seed, cayenne or black pepper, and optional onions, garlic, or shallots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Add the barley broth gradually, starting with a spoonful at a time, stirring well until it boils.

  2. In a teacup, mix the celery seed or cress seed and cayenne or black pepper with a little of the soup.

  3. Pour the mixture into the soup and stir thoroughly.

  4. Let it simmer gently for 15 minutes.

  5. Season with salt and 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. Celery + oniontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  4. Barley + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Pepper + oniontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley broth
Forms the liquid base of the soup and carries the other flavourings through the pot.
Celery seed or cress seed
Adds a sharp, aromatic flavour that gives the soup its characteristic taste.
Cayenne pepper or black pepper
Adds heat and pungency that balances the soup's richness.

The step that matters

Mixing the spices into the soup. Whole or poorly blended spices can clump and leave gritty, uneven pockets of flavour. Mixing them first into a small amount of soup dissolves and disperses them, so they distribute evenly when added to the pot.

Swap the onion

The recipe marks onion as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, 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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