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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, stale bread crumbs, butter, parsley, sea salt, water, soda, and white pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Soak the barley

  1. Wash and steep the barley in ½ pint of water with the soda for 12 hours.

  2. Pour off any unabsorbed water.

Cook the soup

  1. Add the bread-crumbs, 3 quarts of boiling water, and salt.

  2. Boil slowly in a covered pan for 4 to 5 hours.

  3. Add the parsley, butter, and white pepper about 30 minutes before serving.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Parsley + white peppertop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  5. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

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

What each ingredient does

Barley
Forms the body of the soup and thickens it as the grains soften and release starch during long simmering.
Stale bread-crumbs
Add body and help thicken the broth as they break down into the liquid.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Slow boil in a covered pan. Barley needs a long, gentle simmer to soften fully. A vigorous boil can break the grains apart unevenly and scorch the bottom, while a covered pan keeps the liquid from evaporating too quickly.

Swap the white pepper

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Capersfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, bread, butter, parsley. 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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