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Drink

Another Drink

A drink made with pearl barley, sweet almonds, lemon peel, lemon syrup, and capillaire.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and almond 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 ↓

Another Drink

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash the pearl barley thoroughly and sift it twice.

Make the drink

  1. In a pot, combine the barley, water, sweet almonds, and lemon peel.

  2. Boil until you have a smooth liquid.

  3. Add a little syrup of lemons and capillaire to taste.

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 + almondtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together78 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetylpyrazine (roast).

  2. Almond + lemontop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,655 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Lemon + syruptop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together2,235 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  5. Almond + syruptop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together746 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Forms the body of the drink and gives it a thick, starchy texture as it cooks.
Sweet almonds
Adds richness and a smooth, creamy mouthfeel to the liquid.
Syrup of lemons
Adds sweetness and bright citrus acidity to balance the drink.

The step that matters

Boil until you have a smooth liquid. Barley starch must cook fully to thicken the water and soften the grain. Undercooked barley leaves the drink gritty and cloudy, and the almonds need the same heat to blend evenly.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Raisinfits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, almond, syrup. 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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