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Barley Gruel

A simple porridge made by boiling pearl barley in water, then sweetened with sugar and flavored with wine.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and sugar work together. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 755 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Barley Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Wash the pearl barley.

  2. Boil the barley in a quart of water until reduced to a pint.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add sugar and wine to taste.

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

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

  2. Barley + winetop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together128 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  3. Sugar + winetop 31% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together9,581 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 while simmering, thickening the liquid and giving the porridge its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the grain's plain, earthy flavour.
Wine
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the porridge.

The step that matters

Reducing the barley liquid to a pint. As the water boils down, the barley's starch thickens the liquid and flavours concentrate. Stopping at the right volume sets the body of the porridge, and sugar and wine should be added only after straining, once the final amount is known.

“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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