Why it works: Barley and milk work together. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 598 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity. The science ↓
Barley Jelly
Ingredients
Directions
Make the barley jelly
Combine the washed pearl barley and water in a pot.
Slowly boil the mixture until it reduces to 1 cup.
Strain the liquid and allow it to cool to form a jelly.
Serve
Dissolve 2 teaspoons of the jelly in 8 ounces of warmed and sweetened milk.
Serve this mixture twice a day instead of regular milk.
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.
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Barley + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together598 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (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 natural gelling compounds into the water as it simmers, setting the liquid into a jelly.
- Barley jelly
- Provides the gelling body that thickens the warm milk into a soft, set mixture.
The step that matters
Slowly boil the mixture until it reduces to 1 cup. Reducing the liquid concentrates the starches and gelling compounds from the barley. If the liquid is reduced too little, the strained liquid may fail to set into a firm jelly when cooled.
“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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