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Drink

Barley-water

A simple drink made by boiling pearl barley in water, then sweetened and flavored with lemon juice and optional citrus peel.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Barley-water

Why it works: Lemon and orange match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,634 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Barley-water

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley liquid

  1. Wash the pearl barley well.

  2. Pour 1 pint of boiling water over the barley and boil until reduced by half.

  3. For extra flavor, add a small piece of orange or lemon peel while boiling.

Strain and sweeten

  1. Strain the liquid through a towel.

  2. Add sugar and lemon juice 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.

Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it

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 + orangetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together10,634 recipes

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

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

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

  3. Barley + orangetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together79 recipes

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

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together19,212 recipes

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

Sugar and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
Releases starch into the water, giving the drink a light body and mild grain flavor.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavor and balances the sugar.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the grain flavor and acidity.

The step that matters

Boiling until reduced by half. Simmering extracts starch and flavor from the barley into the water. Boiling too long concentrates the liquid and can make it thick and overly strong, while stopping too early leaves it thin and weakly flavored.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits about as well
  2. Lemonthe original
  3. Figfits about as well
  4. Blueberryfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar, orange. 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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