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Cream of Barley

A creamy barley soup made with veal, barley, water, egg yolk, and cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and veal 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 the barley

  1. Wash and soak the pearl barley in cold water overnight.

  2. Strain the barley and place it in a covered saucepan with enough cold water to cover it.

  3. Bring the barley to a boil.

  4. Pour away the boiled water.

Make the soup

  1. Wipe the veal with a damp cloth and cut it into very small pieces.

  2. Combine the veal, barley, 2 pints of water, and a little salt in a saucepan.

  3. Bring the mixture slowly to a boil.

  4. Skim the mixture well.

  5. Let the mixture simmer for six hours.

  6. Strain the mixture through a fine sieve.

  7. Pound the meat and barley in a mortar.

  8. Pass the pounded mixture through a wire sieve.

  9. Add the pounded mixture back to the liquid and heat in a saucepan.

Finish and serve

  1. Beat the egg yolk with the cream.

  2. Draw the pan to the side of the fire.

  3. Pour the egg and cream mixture into the saucepan.

  4. Stir the mixture constantly without letting it boil.

  5. Serve.

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 + vealtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together162 recipes

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

  2. Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together42,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

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

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

  5. Veal + eggtop 28% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together6,845 recipes

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

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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
Swells during long cooking and thickens the soup body.
Knuckle of veal
Releases gelatin and meaty flavor into the broth as it simmers.
Egg yolk
Thickens the finished soup and gives it a smooth, rich texture.
Cream
Adds richness and body, softening the soup's flavor and mouthfeel.

The step that matters

Stir the egg and cream mixture without letting it boil. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat; if the soup boils, the yolk proteins scramble and the soup turns grainy and curdled instead of 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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