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Soup

Cream of Pearl-barley a LA Printaniere

A creamy pearl-barley soup with small fowl quenelles and boiled asparagus.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and asparagus share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 44 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Cream of Pearl-barley a LA Printaniere

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the soup

  1. Prepare cream of pearl-barley as directed.

  2. Pour the soup into a soup tureen.

Finish and serve

  1. Add the small quenelles of fowl and the boiled asparagus.

  2. Serve immediately.

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 + asparagustop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together44 recipes

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

  2. Cream + asparagustop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together838 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-one (mushroom, metallic).

  3. Cream + barleytop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

What each ingredient does

Cream of pearl-barley
Its starch thickens the liquid, giving the soup body and a smooth, creamy texture.
Quenelles of fowl
Poached fowl forcemeat provides a tender, substantial bite that makes the soup more filling.
Asparagus
Adds fresh, grassy flavour and the bright green colour of its boiled tips.

The step that matters

Serve immediately. The quenelles are already cooked and the asparagus is boiled, so holding them in hot soup lets them keep softening and dulls the asparagus's bright green colour. Serving straight away keeps both tender and fresh-looking.

Swap the asparagus

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits about as well
  3. Asparagusthe original
  4. Spinachfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against cream, 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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