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Barley, Apples and Peas

A stew of pearl barley, apples, and peas, served with syrup and brown bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and peas work together. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 187 recipes. Both carry 2-octenal, which smells fatty, green. The science ↓

Barley, Apples and Peas

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 300°F (150°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Cook the barley

  1. Stew the pearl barley in the oven at 300°F (150°C) or in a pan beside the fire for six hours.

Add the apples and serve

  1. Strew the cut apples over the top of the barley and bake until the apples are tender.

  2. Serve with syrup and brown bread.

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 + peastop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together187 recipes

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

  2. Peas + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together804 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexyl acetate (fruity, apple).

  3. Barley + breadtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together201 recipes

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

  4. Apple + breadtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,790 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Barley + appletop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together80 recipes

    Shared aroma: isoamyl acetate (banana, fruity).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Forms the body of the dish; long cooking softens its grains and releases starch that thickens the stew.
Apples
Add sweetness and moisture, and soften into the barley as they bake.

The step that matters

Stewing the barley for six hours. Long, gentle cooking softens the tough barley grain and releases its starch, which thickens the stew. If it is cooked too briefly, the grains stay firm and chewy.

Swap the peas

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

  1. Chestnutfits better
  2. Beansfits better
  3. Almondfits better
  4. Peasthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, apple, syrup, bread. 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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