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Soup

Barley Broth for Invalids

A simple barley broth made with pearl barley and chicken broth, seasoned with salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and chicken work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 265 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Barley Broth for Invalids

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pearl barley in cold water.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the washed barley and chicken broth.

Cook and finish

  1. Bring to a boil, then reduce heat and simmer slowly for 2 hours.

  2. Press the liquid through a fine sieve and season lightly.

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 + chickentop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together265 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Releases starch as it simmers, thickening the broth and giving it body.
Chicken broth
Forms the cooking liquid and carries the flavour of the whole dish.

The step that matters

Simmering slowly for 2 hours. A gentle simmer lets the barley soften and release its starch without breaking apart or clouding the broth. A hard boil can scatter the grains and make the liquid cloudy.

“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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