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Soup

Cream Barley, Neilson Style

A creamy barley soup made with veal or chicken broth, butter, flour, and cream, finished with egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and leek match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 142 recipes. Both carry 1-octen-3-ol, which smells mushroom, earthy. The science ↓

Cream Barley, Neilson Style

Ingredients

Directions

Make the soup base

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat.

  2. Add the flour and Pearl Barley, stirring with a wooden spoon for 15 minutes.

  3. Slowly add the broth and bring to a boil.

  4. Reduce heat and add the parsley, leeks, and green onions.

  5. Season with salt and pepper, and let it simmer for 1.5 hours.

  6. Skim off the grease and remove the herb bundle.

  7. Strain the soup through a fine sieve and keep warm.

Finish and serve

  1. In a bowl, mix the cream and egg yolks, then strain.

  2. Stir in the butter until melted, then serve with the soup.

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 + leektop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together142 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  3. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  4. Parsley + leektop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Flour + leektop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together328 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

Butter
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel to the soup.
All-purpose flour
Toasted with the butter, it gives the soup body and thickens it.
Pearl barley
Softens during simmering and gives the soup chewy texture and body.
Egg yolks
Enrich and thicken the cream, adding smoothness and richness.
Cream
Adds fat and a smooth, rich texture to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Mixing the cream and egg yolks into the soup. Egg yolks can scramble if they get too hot. Tempering them with warm liquid before combining, and keeping the soup from boiling afterward, keeps the finish smooth and silky.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, flour, barley, veal, parsley, leek, pepper):

  1. Turnipfits better
  2. Shallotfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, flour, barley, veal, parsley, leek, 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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