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Barley Water with Egg White

A barley water beverage mixed with egg white, sweetened with sugar and lightly salted.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and egg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 122,807 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Barley Water with Egg White

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley water

  1. Bring 1½ pints of clean water to a boil in a covered saucepan.

  2. Add a pinch of salt and enough sugar to make it palatable.

  3. Strain the mixture.

Finish and serve

  1. To 4 to 6 ounces of the prepared barley water, add the white of one egg.

  2. Stir well before serving.

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. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

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

  2. Sugar + barleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  3. Barley + eggtop 30% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together380 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Barley water
Forms the drink's base, giving its main flavour and body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness so the drink is palatable.
Egg white
Adds a little body and light foam when stirred into the drink.

“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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