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Barley Cream Soup

A creamy soup made with pearl barley, stock, milk, egg yolks, nutmeg, salt, and pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 13,015 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barley Cream Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Soak the barley overnight.

  2. Strain the barley and boil it in water.

  3. Strain again and simmer the barley in the stock until tender, about 1 hour.

  4. Rub the barley through a fine sieve.

  5. Return the barley to the saucepan.

Finish the soup

  1. Stir over heat until boiling.

  2. Add seasoning to taste.

  3. Mix the egg yolks with a little milk. Carefully add the mixture to the soup.

  4. Return the soup to the heat for 1 minute.

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. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

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

    Shared aroma: maltol (caramel, sweet).

  3. Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together897 recipes

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

  4. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  5. Milk + nutmegtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together14,685 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Breaks down when simmered and rubbed through a sieve, thickening the soup and giving it body.
Egg yolks
Enriches and thickens the soup when gently heated, giving a smooth, creamy texture.
Milk
Adds moisture and richness, softening the flavour and texture of the soup.

The step that matters

Adding the egg yolk mixture. Egg yolks can curdle if the soup is too hot when they go in. Adding the mixture carefully and heating only briefly thickens it smoothly without scrambling the eggs.

Swap the nutmeg

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

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

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, milk, egg, 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.

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