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Barley Gruel

A simple barley gruel made with barley, water, port wine, and sugar.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Barley and port wine work together. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 45 recipes. Both carry 2,3-pentanedione, which smells butter, sweet. The science ↓

Barley Gruel

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the barley

  1. Wash the barley thoroughly.

  2. If time allows, soak the barley in cold water.

  3. Drain the barley.

Make the gruel

  1. Bring 1 quart of water to a boil in a pot.

  2. Add the barley and boil until the water is reduced by half.

  3. Strain the mixture to remove the barley.

  4. Add ½ cup of port wine and loaf sugar to taste to the strained liquid.

  5. Simmer the mixture together for 2 to 3 minutes before serving.

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 + port winetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together45 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-pentanedione (butter, sweet).

  2. Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together755 recipes

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

  3. Port wine + sugartop 24% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together805 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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

What each ingredient does

Pearl or scotch barley
Its starch thickens the water into a light, slightly creamy gruel as it boils.
Port wine
Adds sweetness, depth and a fruity aroma to the strained liquid.
Loaf sugar
Sweetens the gruel and balances the tannins of the port.

The step that matters

Reducing the barley liquid by half. Boiling concentrates the starch released by the barley, so the liquid thickens. Stopping too early leaves it thin, while boiling too long makes it pasty and overly reduced.

“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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