Barley Broth
Put two pounds of shin beef in one gallon of water. Add a teacup of pearl barley, three large onions and a small bunch of parsley minced, three potatoes sliced, a little thyme and pepper, salt to taste. Simmer steadily three hours, and stir often, so that the meat will not burn.
Do not let it boil. Always stir soup or broth with a wooden spoon.
A plain boiled-beef broth of the Scottish type, written for a cook who kept a pot on the back of the range all afternoon. Very little needs changing, but a few of the quantities and cuts want translating.
- Shin beefThis is beef shank, ideally cut across the bone so the marrow and collagen enrich the broth. Ask for it bone-in; two pounds of shank on the bone gives roughly a pound of meat once trimmed and picked.
- A teacup of pearl barleyTeacup measures were not standardised; period books reckon anything from about a gill (5 fl oz) to a scant cup, so figure somewhere around 4 to 6 oz of dry pearl barley. In a gallon of liquid the broth will thicken noticeably as it stands; use less if you want it thinner.
- "Simmer, do not boil"This is the hinge of the recipe. A bare simmer at 180-190F keeps the broth clear and lets the shank collagen soften into gelatin; a rolling boil emulsifies the fat and clouds it, and tightens the meat fibres. Small bubbles at the edge of the pot only.
- Stirring and the wooden spoonThe frequent stirring guards against barley settling and scorching on the bottom of the pot. On a modern hob a heavy pot and low flame make this largely unnecessary, though a stir every twenty minutes does no harm. The recipe does not say why a wooden spoon; the usual reasons given at the time were avoiding a hot metal handle, avoiding scratches, and keeping metal out of contact with the broth.
- The potatoesThree sliced potatoes added at the start will collapse almost entirely over three hours, which will thicken the broth, though the recipe says nothing about why they are there. If you want recognisable pieces of potato, hold them back until the last 30 minutes.
- SkimmingNothing is said about it, but skim the grey scum that rises in the first fifteen minutes, and lift the fat from the surface before serving, or chill overnight and lift the cap off cold.
- YieldA gallon of water with three hours of open simmering reduces to roughly three quarts. Serves eight generously as a first course, six as a meal with bread.
Barley broth is the everyday ancestor of Scotch broth, and the pairing of a cheap collagen-rich cut with pearl barley is one of the oldest patterns in northern European cookery: barley grew where wheat would not, and it was the household grain of Scotland and northern England long before it became chiefly a brewer's crop. The pearled form -- hulled and polished so it cooks soft in a few hours rather than all day -- was a nineteenth-century grocery staple.