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
Boil the pearl barley in 1 gallon of water until soft and white.
Strain off the water.
Add currant jelly, lemon, or milk to taste.
Alternatively, wash common barley and simmer in 3-4 pints of water with a little lemon peel.
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 + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Barley + milktop 14% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together598 recipes
Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).
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Lemon + milktop 15% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together19,053 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Currant + milktop 16% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together5,475 recipes
Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, pear).
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Currant + lemontop 20% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together4,270 recipes
Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).
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 and grain flavour that give the drink its body and mild taste.
- Currant jelly
- Adds sweetness and fruity flavour to the finished drink.
- Lemon
- Adds acidity and bright citrus aroma to balance the drink.
Swap the currant
The recipe marks currant as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, lemon, milk):
- Orangefits better
- Figfits better
- Blueberryfits better
- Currantthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against barley, lemon, milk. 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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