Skip to main content
Main

Barley Broth

A hearty broth made with mutton neck, barley, root vegetables, and herbs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Carrot and celery match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,173 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Barley Broth

Ingredients

Directions

Make the stock

  1. Boil the neck of mutton in 3 to 4 quarts of water for 5 hours.

  2. Let the broth stand overnight to remove the fat.

Cook the barley

  1. In a double boiler, boil the barley in a little water for 3 hours.

Finish the broth

  1. Add the diced turnip, carrots, onions, and minced celery or parsley to the broth.

  2. Add the cooked barley to the stock with the vegetables.

  3. Season to taste with salt and pepper.

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 + celerytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,173 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Turnip + carrottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,002 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Turnip + barleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together629 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Turnip + celerytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,418 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

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

What each ingredient does

Neck of mutton
Releases flavour and gelatin into the water, giving the broth its body and savoury depth.
Barley
Softens as it simmers, thickening the broth and adding a chewy texture.
Turnip
Adds a mild, slightly peppery sweetness and firm texture to the broth.
Carrots
Contribute natural sweetness and colour to the broth.
Onions
Add aromatic sweetness and savoury depth as they cook down into the broth.

The step that matters

Let the broth stand overnight to remove the fat. Fat rises and solidifies as the broth cools, so it can be lifted off cleanly. Skipping this leaves a greasy broth.

Swap the onion

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

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

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

More barley broth recipes

Scotch 26 See all 48 →

You might also like

Mutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesCarrot SoupCarrot Soup134 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesHaricot MuttonHaricot Mutton59 recipes