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Drink

Almond Barley Water

A beverage made by blending blanched almonds with boiling water, adding pearl barley and sugar, then simmering and straining.

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.

Make the almond water

  1. Blend the blanched almonds with the boiling water until smooth.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove almond pulp.

Simmer and serve

  1. In a separate pot, combine the washed pearl barley with the strained almond water.

  2. Add sugar and simmer for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain again 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 main flavour and body of the almond water once blended and strained.
Pearl barley
Releases starch and gives the drink its body and mild grainy character as it simmers.
Sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the mild, nutty flavour of the almonds and barley.

The step that matters

Simmer and strain the barley. Barley must simmer long enough to soften and release its starch and flavour into the liquid. Straining afterwards removes the grains so the drink is smooth rather than gritty.

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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