Skip to main content
Main

Barley and Tomato Sour

A barley and tomato soup cooked with onions, butter, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Tomato and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Barley and Tomato Sour

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the tomatoes and onion in 1 ¼ pints of water for 30 minutes.

  2. Rub the mixture through a wire sieve.

  3. Add the barley, butter, pepper, and salt.

  4. Cook for 2 ½ hours.

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. Tomato + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

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

  2. Tomato + oniontop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,633 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Tomato + barleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 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

Fresh tomatoes
Provide the main body, sweetness and acidity of the soup as they break down during cooking.
Spanish onion
Adds savoury sweetness and aroma as it softens and blends into the base.
Pearl barley
Swells during long simmering, thickening the soup and giving it a chewy texture.
Butter
Adds richness and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a wire sieve. Pressing the cooked tomato and onion through the sieve breaks down fibre and removes skins and seeds, giving a smooth base. Skipping or rushing this leaves a coarse, uneven texture.

Swap the tomato

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

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Potatofits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Tomatothe original

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

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesCream of Tomato SoupCream of Tomato Soup107 recipesTomato BisqueTomato Bisque61 recipesCream Tomato SoupCream Tomato Soup28 recipes