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Barley Gruel

A simple barley porridge made with cinnamon, water, and red wine, sweetened to taste.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and cinnamon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 9% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 127 recipes. Both carry cuminaldehyde, which smells Spicy, cumin. The science ↓

Barley Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine pearl barley and cinnamon in a pot with 2 quarts of water.

  2. Bring to a boil and reduce until only 1 quart remains.

  3. Strain the mixture.

  4. Add 1 pint of red wine and sweeten 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 + cinnamontop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together127 recipes

    Shared aroma: cuminaldehyde (Spicy, cumin).

  2. Cinnamon + sugartop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together30,779 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

  3. Cinnamon + red winetop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together312 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl cinnamate (sweet, balsamic).

  4. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  5. Barley + red winetop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

Cinnamon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 30,779 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
Provides the starch that thickens the liquid and gives the porridge its body.
Red wine
Adds acidity and a deep fruity flavour to the finished porridge.

“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 porridge recipes

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