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Infants' Food

A simple infant food made from barley, water, milk, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and milk work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓

Infants' Food

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Blend the barley in a little cold water.

  2. Add the hot water and boil for three minutes, stirring constantly.

  3. Remove from heat and add the sugar and milk.

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. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  2. Milk + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together77,875 recipes

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

  3. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

Milk and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 77,875 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Prepared barley
Thickens the liquid as its starch swells during boiling, giving the food body.
Milk
Adds creaminess and moisture, mellowing the texture once the mixture is off the heat.

The step that matters

Boil for three minutes while stirring constantly. Barley starch must be fully heated in water to swell and thicken. Stirring prevents the starch from settling and scorching on the base of the pan, which would leave lumps and a burnt taste.

“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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