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Scotch Barley Broth

A hearty barley broth made with fowl, beef, carrots, turnips, onions, and barley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Boil the barley in cold water and skim it when it boils.

  2. Add the fowl, beef, carrots, turnips, and onions.

  3. Skim the broth when the vegetables come to a boil.

  4. If using greens, add 1 ounce more barley and boil for 1 hour.

  5. Keep boiling for 5 hours.

Serve

  1. Remove the fowl when cooked and serve it with the broth.

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 + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long boiling, giving body and a soft chew.
Beef
Adds savory depth and meaty flavor to the broth as it simmers.
Fowl
Flavors the broth with rich poultry essence while it cooks, and is served as the meat.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and body to the broth as they soften.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and soft texture to the broth as they cook down.

The step that matters

Skimming the broth. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that rise as the liquid heats. Removing them early keeps the broth clear and prevents a bitter, muddy taste during the long simmer.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, beef, carrot, turnip. 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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