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Barley Porridge

A simple barley porridge cooked with milk, seasoned with salt and pepper, thickened with lentil or pea flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and flour work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 582 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Barley Porridge

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the barley thoroughly, changing the water multiple times.

  2. Scald or blanch the barley by boiling it briefly in cold water.

Cook the porridge

  1. In a saucepan, combine the washed barley and cold milk, just covering the barley.

  2. Stir the mixture to a boil and cook for a few minutes.

  3. Season with salt and pepper, and thicken with lentil or pea flour.

  4. Serve warm with desired accompaniments.

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 + flourtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together582 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

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

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

  3. Barley + milktop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together598 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity).

  4. Milk + flourtop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together78,219 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Pepper + flourtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Milk and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 78,219 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

Barley
Provides the bulk and chewy texture of the porridge as it cooks in the milk.
Cold milk
Cooks the barley into a creamy, soft porridge while adding richness and body.
Lentil or pea flour
Thickens the liquid so the porridge becomes smooth and holds its consistency.

The step that matters

Scald or blanch the barley. Briefly boiling the barley in water before cooking helps remove surface starch and impurities, which can otherwise make the porridge cloudy, gummy, or off-flavored.

“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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