Why it works: Barley and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Barley Water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the pearl barley well with cold water and discard the washings.
Cook and strain
Boil the barley with 1½ pints of water in a covered pot for 20 minutes.
Strain the mixture.
Flavor
Sweeten and flavor with lemon peel or lemon juice if desired.
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.
-
Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pearl barley
- Starch from the grains thickens the water slightly and gives the drink its body.
- Water
- Extracts starch and flavor from the barley and forms the base of the drink.
- Lemon juice
- Adds acidity that brightens the flavor of the barley water.
The step that matters
Boil the barley covered for 20 minutes. Keeping the pot covered limits evaporation so the water volume stays close to the measured amount. Boiling long enough lets starch and flavor leach out of the grains into the liquid.
“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 water recipes
You might also like
Lemon Whey33 recipes
Lemon Wine31 recipes
Lemon Squash10 recipes
Lemon Essence8 recipesThe free Flavor Lab newsletter: one surprising pairing a week and the molecular reason it works, in 60 seconds. No spam, unsubscribe anytime.
Prefer an account? Create a free account to save pairings and unlock the full chemistry.