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Simple Method of Making Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with barley, onions, oatmeal, and seasonings, simmered with beef or mutton dripping and bacon.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 10 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 ↓

Simple Method of Making Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley broth

  1. Wash the barley in cold water.

  2. Add the barley and sliced onions to 5 quarts of water.

  3. Boil gently for 1 hour.

  4. Pour the mixture into a pan.

Make the broth

  1. In a saucepan, melt the beef or mutton dripping or fat bacon.

  2. Stir in the oatmeal until it forms a paste.

  3. Gradually add the barley broth by spoonfuls.

  4. Stir until it boils.

  5. Mix the pounded celery or cress seed, cayenne, and black pepper with a little soup.

  6. Add the mixture to the pot.

  7. Simmer for 15 minutes.

  8. Add salt to taste.

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. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

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

  4. Barley + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Softens during long simmering, thickening the broth and giving it body and a chewy texture.
Oatmeal
Forms a paste with the fat and thickens the broth as it cooks, adding body.
Beef or mutton dripping
Adds fat and richness, carrying flavour and giving a savoury, full mouthfeel.
Sliced onions
Release sweetness and savoury depth into the broth as they simmer.

The step that matters

Forming the oatmeal paste and adding the barley liquid gradually. Stirring the oatmeal into melted fat first coats the starch granules, and adding liquid slowly in spoonfuls keeps the mixture smooth. Adding it all at once can leave lumps that do not dissolve evenly into the broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, beef, 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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