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Stewed Barley, with Tomatoes

A stew of barley simmered with tomatoes, seasoned with salt and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Pepper and tomato are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,923 recipes. Both carry 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine, which smells earthy, pea. The science ↓

Stewed Barley, with Tomatoes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook the barley

  1. Soak the barley in water for 2 hours.

  2. Boil the soaked barley for 2 hours.

Finish the stew

  1. Season with coarse sea salt and Cayenne pepper.

  2. Add the fresh or canned tomatoes.

  3. Simmer gently for 10 minutes.

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. Pepper + tomatotop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together17,923 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  2. Barley + tomatotop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together155 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  3. Barley + peppertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together897 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

Barley
Provides the body and thick, starchy texture of the stew as it cooks.
Fresh tomatoes or american tomatoes
Add moisture, acidity and fresh flavour to the stew.

Swap the tomato

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, pepper):

  1. Leekfits better
  2. Capsicumfits better
  3. Carrotfits better
  4. Tomatothe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, pepper. 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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