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Drink

Barley Water

A light beverage made by boiling pearl barley with water, then reducing and straining, optionally flavored with figs, raisins, and liquorice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Fig and raisin work together. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 737 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Barley Water

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the Pearl Barley with cold water.

  2. Add the barley to ½ pint of boiling water and boil for 5 minutes.

  3. Pour off the water and add 2 quarts of boiling water.

  4. Boil until reduced to 2 pints, then strain.

Add the flavorings

  1. For flavored barley water, add figs, raisins, liquorice, and 1 pint of water.

  2. Boil until reduced to 1 quart, then strain.

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. Fig + raisintop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together737 recipes

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

  2. Barley + figtop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 recipes

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

  3. Barley + raisintop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl barley
Its starch releases into the water during boiling, giving the drink body and a thick, soft texture.
Figs
Add sweetness and a mild, fruity flavor to the finished drink.
Raisins
Add sweetness and a rounded, fruity flavor as they soften in the liquid.
Liquorice
Adds a distinctive sweet, aromatic flavor to the water.

The step that matters

Pour off the water and add 2 quarts of boiling water. The first short boil with the barley is a rinse that removes surface starch and impurities. Discarding that water and starting again with fresh boiling water keeps the drink clean-tasting and gives a clearer, more even extraction.

Swap the raisin

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Pearfits better
  3. Cherryfits better
  4. Raisinthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, fig. 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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