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Scotch Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with barley, chicken or beef, carrots, turnips, and onions.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Carrot and turnip match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,002 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Scotch Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, bring 2 gallons of cold water to a boil.

  2. Add 6 ounces of barley and skim the surface when it boils.

  3. Add the whole chicken or 3 pounds of beef to the pot.

  4. Chop and add 3 pounds of carrots, 3 pounds of turnips, and 3 finely chopped onions.

  5. If using greens, add them towards the end of cooking.

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. Carrot + turniptop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + oniontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Barley + carrottop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together784 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Carrot + oniontop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together21,601 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

Barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during simmering, giving body and a chewy texture.
Chicken or beef
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, building the savoury base of the broth.
Carrots
Add sweetness and colour, and soften into the broth as it cooks.
Turnips
Add mild sweetness and body, softening as the broth simmers.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and depth as they cook down into the broth.

The step that matters

Skimming the surface after the water boils. Skimming removes foam and coagulated proteins that rise as the water boils, keeping the broth clear and free of a bitter, greasy scum.

Swap the onion

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, chicken, carrot, turnip):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Parsnipfits better
  3. Beetrootfits better
  4. Onionthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, chicken, carrot, turnip. 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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