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Soup

Cream of Barley

A creamy soup made from veal, barley, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Veal and barley work together. They rank in the top 23% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 162 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Cream of Barley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Trim all fat from the veal cutlet using a sharp knife.

  2. Cut the lean meat into small pieces and place in a saucepan with 2 cups of cold water.

  3. Add 2 oz of barley (previously washed and soaked for 1 hour) and ¼ teaspoon of coarse sea salt.

Simmer

  1. Bring the saucepan to a gentle boil and simmer for 2 hours.

Strain and smooth

  1. Strain the liquid into a basin, then pound the meat and barley together in a mortar.

  2. Place a fine sieve over another basin.

  3. Transfer the pounded mixture onto the sieve and rub it through with a wooden spoon.

  4. Pour the strained liquid over the sieve to help the pulp pass through.

Finish

  1. Once all has passed through, stir in 2 tablespoons of cream until smooth.

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. Veal + barleytop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Barley + creamtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together301 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  3. Veal + creamtop 27% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,202 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-heptanol (bitter, floral).

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

What each ingredient does

Veal cutlet
Provides the meat flavour and body that the soup is built on.
Barley
Its starch thickens the liquid as it simmers and gives the soup body.
Cream
Adds richness and a silky mouthfeel at the end.

The step that matters

Rubbing the pulp through the sieve. Pressing the cooked meat and barley through a fine sieve breaks down fibres and starch into a fine pulp. Skipping or rushing this leaves grainy bits, so the soup will not be smooth.

“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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