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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, meat trimmings, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine 4 quarts of water and 2 pounds of meat trimmings.

  2. Add ¼ pound of pearl barley, 4 sliced onions, salt, pepper, and parsley if available.

  3. Simmer the mixture for 3 hours or longer, stirring occasionally.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

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

  3. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

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

  4. Barley + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

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

  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

Meat trimmings
Release savory flavor and gelatin into the broth as they simmer.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth and adds a chewy, tender texture as it cooks.
Onions
Add sweetness and aromatic depth to the broth as they soften.

The step that matters

Simmer slowly and stir occasionally. A long, gentle simmer lets the meat and onions release flavor gradually while the barley softens evenly. A hard boil can cloud the broth and cook the barley unevenly, and occasional stirring keeps the barley from settling and sticking to the bottom of the pot.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, barley, onion, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, barley, onion, 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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