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Barley Soup

A hearty soup made with barley, meat trimmings, onions, and seasonings.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barley Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine 4 quarts of water and 2 pounds of meat trimmings in a large pot.

  2. Add ¼ pound of pearl barley, 4 sliced onions, salt, pepper, and parsley if available.

  3. Simmer the mixture for at least 3 hours.

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. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

  2. Onion + parsleytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together25,843 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  3. Barley + parsleytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together630 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Barley + oniontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,166 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Onion + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together68,474 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

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

What each ingredient does

Meat trimmings
Release flavour and gelatin into the broth as they simmer, giving body and savoury depth.
Pearl barley
Thickens the broth as its starch releases during long simmering and gives the soup a chewy texture.
Onions
Add sweetness and aroma as they soften and release their flavour into the broth.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture for at least 3 hours. A long, gentle simmer lets meat and bones release collagen and flavour slowly, and lets barley soften fully. Boiling hard can make the broth cloudy and the meat tough.

Swap the parsley

The recipe marks parsley as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (meat, barley, onion, pepper):

  1. Thymefits better
  2. Celeryfits about as well
  3. Garlicfits about as well
  4. Parsleythe original

Fit is the average pairing score against meat, barley, onion, 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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