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Soup

Cream of Barley

A velvety soup made from veal, barley, and cream, simmered and blended until smooth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Cream of Barley

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Trim all fat from the veal cutlet and cut the lean meat into small pieces.

  2. Place the meat in a saucepan with 2 cups of cold water.

  3. Add the washed and soaked barley and the coarse sea salt.

  4. Bring to a gentle boil and simmer for two hours.

  5. Strain the liquid into a basin.

Purée and finish

  1. Pound the meat and barley together in a mortar.

  2. Set a fine sieve over another basin.

  3. Transfer the pounded mixture to the sieve and rub it through with a wooden spoon.

  4. Pour the strained liquid over the mixture to help it pass through.

  5. Once all has passed through, stir in the cream smoothly.

  6. Warm the Cream of Barley gently before serving, ensuring it does not boil to prevent curdling.

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

Veal cutlet
Lean meat gives the soup its savoury body and flavour as it simmers.
Barley
Starch from the grain thickens the liquid and gives the soup its body when rubbed through.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Warming the soup gently. Once cream is added, boiling can cause it to curdle or separate. Keeping the soup below a boil keeps the emulsion smooth.

“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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