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Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with barley, onions, oatmeal, and seasoned with celery or cress seed, pepper, allspice, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 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 ↓

Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Simmer the barley

  1. Wash the barley and place it in a pot with the water.

  2. Add the sliced onions and boil gently for 1 hour.

  3. Pour the mixture into a pan.

Finish the soup

  1. In the pot, melt the dripping.

  2. Stir in the oatmeal, then gradually add the broth back into the pot.

  3. Stir well until it boils, seasoning with celery or cress seed, black pepper, allspice, and salt.

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. Pepper + allspicetop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,395 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Celery + allspicetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,422 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  4. Barley + celerytop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together571 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methoxy-4-vinylphenol (clove, smoky).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Its starch thickens the soup and gives it a chewy, substantial body.
Oatmeal
Its starch thickens the broth further, adding body and a creamy texture.
Beef or mutton dripping
Adds fat that carries flavour and gives the soup a rich mouthfeel.
Sliced onions
Softened by gentle boiling, they add sweetness and savoury aroma to the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring in the oatmeal. Oatmeal starch clumps when dropped into hot liquid all at once. Adding it gradually while stirring disperses the grains, so the soup thickens smoothly instead of forming lumps.

Swap the allspice

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

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Garlicfits better
  4. Allspicethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, onion, 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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