Name: Barley Water with White of Egg
Ingredients: 1 tablespoon coarse barley; 1½ cups clean water; a pinch of coarse sea salt; sugar to taste; white of 1 egg

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 White of Egg

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

Wash the barley well with cold water, discarding the washings.
Boil the barley in a covered saucepan with 1½ cups of clean water for about 1 hour.
Add a pinch of coarse sea salt and enough sugar to make it palatable, then strain the mixture.

Add the egg white

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

Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together122,807 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

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

Coarse barley: Provides the starch and body that give the barley water its flavour and thickness.
White of 1 egg: Adds protein and a light, frothy texture to the prepared barley water.

“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.