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Barley Cream

A smooth, thick cream made by simmering veal and pearl barley, then pounding, sieving and mixing with cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and barley work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Barley Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pearl barley well and soak it in cold water for 1 hour.

  2. Remove all fat from the veal and cut it into small pieces.

Cook

  1. Place the veal in a saucepan with 1 pint of cold water.

  2. Add the soaked barley and coarse sea salt to the saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture to a gentle boil and let it simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain the liquid into a basin and place the meat and barley in a mortar.

Finish

  1. Pound the meat and barley together until well combined.

  2. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve into a basin, adding the strained liquid to achieve a smooth consistency.

  3. Stir in the cream until fully incorporated.

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. Veal + barleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Barley + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Swells during simmering and thickens the liquid, giving the cream its body.
Lean veal
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, adding savoury richness to the cream.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished cream.

The step that matters

Rub through the sieve while the mixture is still warm. Pushing the cooked meat and barley through a fine sieve breaks down fibres and starch into a smooth texture. Adding the strained liquid gradually loosens the mixture so it passes through easily and does not turn pasty.

“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.

More barley cream recipes

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