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Gruel, Barley

A thin barley gruel simmered with cinnamon, sugar, and port wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Gruel, Barley

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the pearl barley in two or three waters.

  2. Put the barley into a saucepan with the water and cinnamon.

  3. Simmer gently until the liquid is reduced by half.

Finish and store

  1. Strain the mixture and return it to the saucepan.

  2. Add the sugar and port wine.

  3. Keep it in a cool place and heat as needed.

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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Barley + port winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  4. Cinnamon + port winetop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together241 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

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

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

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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

Pearl barley
Its starch thickens the liquid as it simmers, giving the gruel body.
Port wine
Adds fruity sweetness and acidity, and a deeper aroma to the gruel.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the port and the spice.

The step that matters

Simmer gently until the liquid is reduced by half. A gentle simmer lets the barley release its starch slowly and evenly. Boiling hard can make the barley break apart unevenly and scorch on the bottom of the pan.

“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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