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Drink

Barley Water

Barley water is a warm beverage made from pearl barley, water, figs, raisins, lemon juice, and optional sweetener and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and nutmeg match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,318 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Barley Water

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Put the pearl barley into ½ pint of boiling water and let it simmer for a few minutes.

  2. Drain the barley and add 2 quarts of boiling water along with the chopped figs and stoned raisins.

  3. Boil slowly until the mixture is reduced by about half.

  4. Strain the mixture.

  5. Sweeten to taste, adding the juice of a lemon and nutmeg if desired.

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. Lemon + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together11,318 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Raisin + nutmegtop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-terpineol (lilac, floral).

  3. Fig + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together510 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  4. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  5. Barley + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 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

Pearl barley
Its starch releases into the water, giving the drink its body and mild, cereal flavour.
Figs
Their natural sugars and flavour sweeten and colour the liquid as they simmer.
Stoned raisins
Their sugars and fruity flavour add sweetness and depth to the simmering liquid.
Lemon juice
Its acidity brightens the flavour and balances the sweetness of the fruit.

The step that matters

Boil slowly until reduced by about half. Gentle simmering lets the barley starch and fruit flavours extract gradually, while a hard rolling boil can scorch the sugars and cloud the liquid.

Swap the nutmeg

The recipe marks nutmeg as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, fig, raisin, lemon):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegthe original
  3. Thymefits less well
  4. Clovefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, fig, raisin, lemon. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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