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Pearl Barley Soup

A barley soup made with stock, egg yolk, milk, and croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and onion are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,166 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Pearl Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Boil the pearl barley in the clear stock until reduced to a pulp.

  2. Pass it through a fine sieve and add enough additional stock to achieve a cream-like consistency.

  3. Heat the mixture in a saucepan until boiling.

Finish and serve

  1. Off the heat, stir in the beaten egg yolk mixed with milk or cream.

  2. Serve with croutons made from bread dipped in stock and crisped in the oven.

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

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

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

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

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

  4. Barley + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

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

  5. Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together897 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Breaks down into a pulp that thickens the soup and gives it body.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it gently, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk or cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the flavour and texture of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk off the heat. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat, but if the soup is boiling when it goes in, the yolk can scramble and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth and creamy.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, egg, milk, bread, pepper):

  1. Asparagusfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Leekfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, egg, milk, bread, 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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