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Barley-cream

A creamy barley dish made with butter, egg yolks, and broth.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 136 recipes. Both carry maltol, which smells caramel, sweet. The science ↓

Barley-cream

Ingredients

Directions

Cook the barley

  1. Melt the butter in a stewpan.

  2. Add the pearl barley and fry for 2-3 minutes.

  3. Moisten with boiling water.

  4. Add salt.

  5. Cover and simmer for 2 hours, adding broth as needed.

  6. Remove from heat.

Strain and thicken

  1. Mash the barley with a spoon.

  2. Pass the mixture through a sieve.

  3. Lighten with broth.

  4. Bring to a boil while stirring.

  5. Remove from heat.

  6. Skim off the fat.

  7. Thicken with egg yolks.

  8. Season with nutmeg and sugar.

  9. Pour into a tureen.

  10. Strain through a fine colander.

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 + nutmegtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together136 recipes

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  2. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Egg + nutmegtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  5. Butter + sugartop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together98,233 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

Egg and nutmeg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Provides the body and starch that give the cream its thick, smooth texture.
Egg yolks
Thicken the cream as they set gently with heat, adding richness.
Butter
Adds fat and flavour when it is melted and used to fry the barley.

The step that matters

Thicken with egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken through gentle heat. If the mixture boils after they are added, they can scramble and turn grainy, so the cream must stay below boiling while they are stirred in.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, butter, egg, sugar):

  1. Cinnamonfits about as well
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Capersfits less well
  4. Parsleyfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, butter, egg, sugar. 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.

More barley cream recipes

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