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Barley Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with barley, stock, egg yolk, and cream, finished with optional parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and cream are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,516 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Barley Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup

  1. Melt the butter in a stew-pan and add the chopped onion.

  2. Mix the barley into a smooth paste with a little cold milk.

  3. Add the barley paste and stock to the pan, stirring until it boils.

  4. Let it simmer for about 30 minutes.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolk with the cream and stir into the boiling soup.

  2. Stir until it thickens, but do not let it boil to avoid curdling.

  3. Strain the soup and serve with chopped parsley if desired.

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. Butter + creamtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  2. Onion + chickentop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,814 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  3. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

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

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

  5. Onion + barleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Patent barley
Thickens the stock as its starch swells and gelatinises during simmering.
Egg yolk
Enriches the soup and thickens it gently as it heats.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, silky mouthfeel.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour to the base where the onion cooks.
Chicken or veal stock
Provides the liquid base and savoury flavour of the soup.

The step that matters

Keep the soup below a boil once the egg yolk and cream go in. Egg proteins set when heated, but at a boil they overcook and curdle, leaving a grainy texture instead of a smooth, thickened soup.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, onion, barley, chicken, egg, cream):

  1. Garlicfits better
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, onion, barley, chicken, egg, cream. 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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