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Scotch Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with Scotch barley, veal or beef, onions, celery, turnip, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 9 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 629 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Wash the Scotch barley.

  2. Place the barley in a stewpan with the veal or beef pieces.

  3. Cover with cold water.

  4. Bring to a boil gradually.

  5. Skim off the fat.

  6. Add the onions.

  7. Simmer gently for 2 hours.

  8. Skim again.

  9. Add the celery.

  10. Add the turnip.

  11. Season with salt.

  12. Let it stew for another 1.5 hours.

  13. Skim as needed.

  14. Remove the meat.

  15. Pour the broth into a tureen.

Thicken and serve

  1. In a clean saucepan, mix the flour with the quart of broth gradually.

  2. Stir continuously until it boils.

  3. Add the port wine.

  4. Bring to a boil again.

  5. Strain over the meat on a serving dish.

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. Barley + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Celery + turniptop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Onion + turniptop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  5. Turnip + flourtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Thickens the broth and adds a chewy, starchy body as it cooks.
Veal or beef shin
Releases gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth as it simmers.
Onions
Add sweetness and savory depth to the broth as they soften.
Celery
Contributes aromatic flavor and a subtle vegetal background to the broth.
Flour
Thickens the broth into a smoother, silkier consistency when cooked.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a fruity aroma to the finished broth.

The step that matters

Skim the fat and foam during simmering. Fat and surface scum left in the pot make the broth greasy and cloudy. Skimming at each stage keeps it clear and clean-tasting.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, veal, celery, turnip, flour, port wine):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Arrowrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, veal, celery, turnip, flour, port wine. 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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