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Barley Water for Infants

A warm barley drink made by boiling pearl barley, straining, seasoning with salt and sugar, and mixing with scalded cow's milk.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 ↓

Barley Water for Infants

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley water

  1. Put the pearl barley in cold water.

  2. Boil for an hour or more until reduced to 2 cups.

  3. Strain through a close cloth.

Finish and serve

  1. Add a pinch of salt and sweeten to taste.

  2. Mix with 1 cup of scalded cow's 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. Sugar + milktop 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).

Sugar and milk 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

Pearl barley
Its starch thickens and flavours the water as it simmers and reduces.
Cow's milk
Adds protein, fat and body, turning the barley water into a milky drink.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to taste, making the drink more palatable.

The step that matters

Boiling until reduced to 2 cups. Boiling for an hour or more concentrates the barley's starch and flavour. Stopping too early leaves the water thin and under-cooked, while over-reducing makes it too strong and changes the final balance of the drink.

“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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