Why it works: Barley and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Barley-water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the barley
Wash the pearl barley in cold water and discard the water.
Put the washed barley in a saucepan with a little boiling water and boil for a few minutes, then discard this water.
Make the barley water
Fill the saucepan with 2 quarts of boiling water and boil until only 1 quart remains.
Flavor with lemon or jelly if desired.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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 + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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 soluble flavor into the water, giving the drink its body and mild taste.
The step that matters
Boil the barley until only 1 quart remains. Boiling concentrates the liquid as water evaporates, so the drink's strength depends on reducing it to the stated volume. Stopping early gives a weak drink, and boiling too long makes it overly thick.
“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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