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A soup made by simmering a whole ram with parsley, water, sugar, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 630 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Soups, Broths, Etc

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Tie the ram and parsley together.

Simmer the broth

  1. In a large pot, combine water, sugar, and salt; bring to a boil.

  2. Skim the surface, then reduce heat and simmer for 3.5 hours.

  3. Remove all fat from the surface.

Serve

  1. Chop some parsley finely and place 2 teaspoons in a serving tureen.

  2. Strain the broth into the tureen and serve.

  3. If desired, cook barley, tapioca, or rice in ¾ pint of broth for the specified time before adding to the soup.

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. Parsley + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + barleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Parsley + sugartop 39% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,535 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

What each ingredient does

Ram
Gives the broth its main meaty flavour and body as it simmers for hours.
Parsley
Adds a fresh, green herbal aroma to the broth and garnish.
Loaf sugar
Adds a mild sweetness that softens the broth's savoury edge.

The step that matters

Skim the surface before simmering. Skimming foam and impurities as the broth first comes to a boil keeps it clear and clean-tasting. Removing fat afterward keeps the soup from feeling greasy.

Swap the parsley

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Celeryfits better
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, barley. 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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