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Buttermilk Soup

A barley soup made with buttermilk, flour, salt, and egg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Flour and buttermilk are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,721 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Buttermilk Soup

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Cook the pearl barley with ½ tablespoon of flour until well done.

  2. In a separate pot, bring 1 quart of buttermilk to a boil, stirring constantly while adding ¼ tablespoon of flour.

  3. Add the cooked barley to the buttermilk mixture.

  4. Season with salt to taste.

  5. Just before serving, stir in 1 beaten egg.

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. Flour + buttermilktop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,721 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  3. Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together106,462 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  4. Barley + buttermilktop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together37 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  5. Buttermilk + eggtop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,986 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Flour and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 106,462 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
Provides the chewy body and bulk that make the soup substantial.
Buttermilk
Gives the soup its tangy acidity and creamy, thin-bodied moisture.
Egg
Adds richness and gently thickens the soup when stirred in at the end.
Flour
Thickens the liquids slightly, helping the soup feel smoother and less watery.

The step that matters

Adding the flour to the boiling buttermilk. Flour stirred into hot liquid can clump if not added gradually while stirring constantly. Constant stirring disperses the starch so the soup stays smooth and evenly thickened.

“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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