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Barley Gruel

A barley gruel made with pearl barley, currants, egg yolks, wine, cream, lemon peel, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Cream and sugar are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 43,450 recipes. Both carry 2,3-butanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Barley Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Rinse the pearl barley and make a quart of barley-water.

  2. Add the currants and cook until they are plumped.

  3. Pour out the gruel and let it cool slightly.

Finish the gruel

  1. Stir in the beaten egg yolks, white wine, thick cream, and lemon peel.

  2. Sweeten with fine sugar to your taste.

  3. Gently heat the mixture over the fire until it thickens to the consistency of cream.

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. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

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

  2. White wine + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Currant + white winetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together276 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  5. White wine + creamtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together1,760 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-decalactone (peach, creamy).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Provides the body and starchy base that gives the gruel its substance.
Currants
Plump during cooking and add sweetness and fruity flavour.
Egg yolks
Thicken the gruel as they gently heat and add richness.
Thick cream
Adds fat for a smooth, rich texture and mellows the wine's acidity.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the rich, creamy mixture.

The step that matters

Gently heat the mixture over the fire until it thickens to the consistency of cream.. Egg yolks set when heated, so heating too quickly or too hot can curdle the mixture. Low, gentle heat and constant stirring let the yolks thicken it smoothly.

Swap the currant

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, egg, white wine, cream, lemon, sugar):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Orangefits better
  3. Figfits better
  4. Currantthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, egg, white wine, cream, lemon, sugar. 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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