Why it works: Barley and sugar work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓
Barley Coffee
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Roast barley until it is dark brown, similar to coffee.
Brew and serve
Add 2 tablespoons of the roasted barley to 1 quart of boiling water.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Add sugar to taste.
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.
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Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together755 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Roasted barley
- Provides the toasty, coffee-like flavor and dark color as its sugars and starches brown during roasting.
- Boiling water
- Extracts flavor and color from the roasted barley into the liquid.
The step that matters
Roast the barley until dark brown. Roasting drives the browning reactions that create the coffee-like flavor and color. Pale barley yields a weak, grassy drink, while over-roasted barley turns bitter and burnt.
“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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