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Dr. Kitchiner's Receipt to Make Barley Broth

A hearty barley broth with onion, oatmeal, and clarified drippings, seasoned with celery seed, cayenne, pepper, and salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Celery and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 16,012 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Dr. Kitchiner's Receipt to Make Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the broth

  1. Combine washed barley, sliced onion, and water in a large pot and boil gently for 1 hour.

  2. Pour the mixture into a pan and return it to the saucepan.

Thicken and season

  1. Add the drippings, suet, or minced bacon to the saucepan and melt over low heat.

  2. Stir in the oatmeal until it forms a paste, ensuring the fat combines with the broth.

  3. Gradually add the barley broth, stirring well until it boils.

  4. In a cup, mix celery or cress seed and cayenne (or pepper) with a little soup, then pour it back into the pot.

  5. Simmer gently for an additional 15 minutes, then season with salt before serving.

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. Celery + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together16,012 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Onion + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,092 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  4. Barley + beeftop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together458 recipes

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

  5. Onion + celerytop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,518 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Scotch barley
Releases starch and body as it simmers, giving the broth its substance.
Oatmeal
Forms a paste with the melted fat and thickens the broth further.
Drippings, suet, or bacon fat
Adds richness and carries flavour through the broth.

The step that matters

Stirring the oatmeal into the melted fat. Oatmeal must be worked into the fat to form a smooth paste before liquid is added. If it is added to hot liquid without this, it clumps and thickens unevenly, leaving lumps that do not disperse.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, beef, celery, pepper):

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, beef, celery, 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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