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Barley Soup with Cream

A barley soup made with broth, butter, cream, nutmeg, and served with fried croutons.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 with Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the barley in several waters.

  2. Put the barley in a stewpan with the broth or stock.

  3. Stir over medium heat until it boils, then reduce heat and let it simmer slowly for three hours.

Finish the soup

  1. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and grated nutmeg.

  2. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve and return it to the stewpan.

  3. Heat the cream and add it to the soup along with the sugar and butter.

  4. Stir until thoroughly hot, but do not let it boil.

Serve

  1. Place the fried croutons in a soup tureen, pour in the soup, and serve.

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 + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

  2. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

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

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

  4. Barley + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  5. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Softens as it simmers, thickening the soup and giving it body.
White broth
Provides the liquid base that the barley cooks in and absorbs.
Cream
Adds richness and a smooth, velvety texture to the finished soup.
Butter
Adds fat for richness and a rounded, silky mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir until thoroughly hot, but do not let it boil. Once the cream is added, boiling can cause dairy to separate and curdle, leaving the soup grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Nutmegthe original
  2. Cinnamonfits about as well
  3. Celeryfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, butter, cream, sugar, bread, 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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