Skip to main content
Main

A Mixture of Rice and Scotch Barley

A porridge made from rice, Scotch barley, water, sugar, and salt simmered for hours.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Rice and barley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 568 recipes. Both carry 2-nonenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

A Mixture of Rice and Scotch Barley

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a large pot, combine rice, barley, and water.

  2. Bring to a boil over low heat.

  3. Cover and simmer for 4 hours.

  4. Before removing from heat, stir in sugar and salt.

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. Rice + barleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together568 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

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

  3. Rice + sugartop 26% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Rice
Breaks down during long simmering to thicken the porridge and give it a soft, creamy body.
Scotch barley
Keeps its chewy texture through simmering while releasing starch that adds body to the porridge.
Sugar
Adds sweetness that balances the grains' mild, starchy flavor.

The step that matters

Bringing to a boil over low heat. Starting over low heat lets the rice and barley hydrate gradually and reduces the risk of scorching the bottom of the pot before the long simmer begins. Sugar can also scorch on the base of a pot, so stirring it in near the end, as the recipe directs, helps prevent this.

“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.

You might also like

Rice FrittersRice Fritters84 recipesSteamed RiceSteamed Rice48 recipesRice Griddle CakesRice Griddle Cakes28 recipesRice and Cheese CasseroleRice and Cheese Casserole23 recipes