Skip to main content
Main

Barley Cream

A creamy barley dish made with milk, water, egg yolk, egg whites, arrowroot, sugar, and brandy.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Barley and arrowroot share more aroma than cooks usually use. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 36 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Barley Cream

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Boil the barley in milk and water until tender, then strain the liquid.

  2. Put the barley in a quart of cream and bring to a boil.

Thicken

  1. Beat the yolk of one egg and the whites of five with arrowroot.

  2. Stir the egg mixture into the boiling cream until it thickens.

Finish and serve

  1. Remove from heat and stir in sugar and brandy.

  2. Pour into a bowl or cups and serve.

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 + arrowroottop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together36 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  3. Milk + brandytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,738 recipes

    Shared aroma: gamma-nonanolactone (coconut, sweet).

  4. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  5. Milk + arrowroottop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together817 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-methylbutyraldehyde (malty, chocolate).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Barley
Softens and releases starch, giving the cream its body and a grainy texture.
Eggs
Their proteins set as they heat, thickening and enriching the cream.
Arrowroot
A starch that thickens the mixture when heated, giving a smooth, glossy texture.
Milk
Provides liquid and creaminess, forming the base of the dish.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and balances the richness of the cream.
Brandy
Adds aroma and a warm flavour to the finished cream.

The step that matters

Stirring the egg mixture into the boiling cream. Egg proteins set at high heat and can curdle or scramble if added too quickly. Stir constantly while pouring, and remove from heat as soon as the mixture thickens.

Swap the arrowroot

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

  1. Sweet potatofits about as well
  2. Asparagusfits about as well
  3. Arrowrootthe original
  4. Potatofits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, milk, egg, sugar, brandy. 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.

More barley cream recipes

Soup 16 See all 13 →

You might also like

Arrowroot GruelArrowroot Gruel37 recipesCream of Barley SoupCream of Barley Soup10 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipes