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Almond Barley Water

A warm or chilled beverage made from blanched almonds, pearl barley, water, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Almond and barley share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 78 recipes. Both carry acetylpyrazine, which smells roast. The science ↓

Almond Barley Water

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no cooking times; the times in the steps were added in transcription, so check for doneness rather than trusting the clock.

Prepare

  1. Blend the blanched almonds with a little water until smooth.

  2. In a pot, combine the washed pearl barley and boiling water.

Cook and serve

  1. Add the almond mixture and sugar to the pot.

  2. Simmer for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally.

  3. Strain the mixture and serve warm or chilled.

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. Almond + barleytop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  2. Almond + sugartop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together15,679 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

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

Blanched almonds
Provide the nutty flavour and body that give the drink its milky character.
Pearl barley
Releases starch and flavour into the water during simmering, giving the drink its body.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the nutty and grainy flavours.

The step that matters

Blending the almonds until smooth. Finely blended almonds release more flavour and body into the liquid. Coarse pieces stay gritty and settle out, so the drink tastes thin and sandy.

Swap the almond

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, sugar):

  1. Milletfits about as well
  2. Almondthe original
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, 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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