Why it works: Barley and lime share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Barley Water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Wash the pearl barley thoroughly.
Make the barley water
Combine the barley with 2 quarts of cold water in a pot and bring to a boil.
Strain the barley and return it to the pot with the same amount of cold water.
Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half.
Strain the liquid again and add sugar and lime juice to taste.
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.
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Barley + limetop 14% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together27 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
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Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together755 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
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Sugar + limetop 29% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together3,332 recipes
Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Pearl barley
- Starch and soluble compounds from the grain flavour the water and give it body.
- Cold water
- Extracts flavour and starch from the barley as it simmers and reduces.
- Sugar
- Adds sweetness to balance the tartness of the lime juice.
- Lime juice
- Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma.
The step that matters
Simmer until the liquid is reduced by half. Simmering concentrates the extracted starch and flavour. Reducing too little leaves the drink thin, while reducing too far makes it overly thick and strong, so the liquid should be checked as it cooks.
Swap the lime
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Limethe original
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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