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Salad

Barley Salad with Corn and Peas

A barley salad with corn, peas, tomatoes, celery, scallions, dill, olive oil, lemon juice, and optional feta cheese.

From the Recipes Wiki (Fandom) · 10 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and olive match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 6% of all ingredient pairs, and 217 recipes mention both. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

The recipe

Time40 to 45 minutes

Ingredients

Contains: milk (auto-detected from the ingredients and method; we can miss things, so check labels)

Directions

Cook the barley

  1. Bring 2 1/2 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan.

  2. Add barley, reduce heat, and simmer covered until barley is tender and water is absorbed, 40 to 45 minutes.

  3. Remove pan from heat and let barley cool to room temperature.

Assemble and serve

  1. In a large bowl, combine barley with remaining ingredients except feta cheese, and mix well.

  2. Serve at room temperature or chilled, with feta on the side for garnish if desired.

Recipe from the Recipes Wiki (Fandom).

This recipe comes from the Recipes Wiki on Fandom and is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Our formatting and summaries are shared under the same licence.

Steps grouped into stages for easier reading; the method is the source's own.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much aroma chemistry they share, and how many recipes mention both.

  1. Barley + olivetop 6% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together217 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Tomato + olivetop 1% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together14,164 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Celery + dilltop 2% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together382 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Tomato + celerytop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together3,375 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  5. Corn + tomatotop 3% of all pairs
    Aroma overlapstrong
    Mentioned together2,098 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

Pearl barley
Provides chewy, bulky body that holds its texture when cooled.
Fresh corn
Adds sweetness and juicy texture to the salad.
Plum tomatoes
Contribute moisture and acidity that brighten the salad.
Olive oil
Adds fat that carries flavor and coats the grains.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that balances the sweetness of the corn and peas.

The step that matters

Simmering the barley. Barley must simmer covered until tender and all water is absorbed. Lifting the lid or removing the pan early leaves the grains firm and wet, and the salad then tastes gritty and watery.

Flavor stand-ins for the plum

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, corn, peas, tomato, celery, dill, olive):

  1. Lemonbetter flavor fit
  2. Cherrybetter flavor fit
  3. Limebetter flavor fit
  4. Plumthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, corn, peas, tomato, celery, dill, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes. This compares flavor only: it does not check the job the ingredient does in the dish (bulk, moisture, acidity, structure).

“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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