Name: Barley Water
Ingredients: ½ cup pearl barley; water; sugar to taste; orange or lemon (for flavor)

Why it works: Barley and orange work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 79 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Barley Water

Ingredients

½ cup pearl barley
water
sugar to taste
orange or lemon (for flavor)

Directions

Wash the pearl barley well.
Boil the barley in water for one hour.
Sweeten to taste with sugar.
Add orange or lemon for flavor.

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.

Barley + orangetop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together79 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
Sugar + orangetop 20% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together19,212 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together755 recipes

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

Sugar and orange barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 19,212 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 and a mild grain flavor into the water, giving it a light body.
Sugar: Adds sweetness to balance the grain flavor.
Orange or lemon: Adds bright aroma and mild acidity.