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Drink

Barley Water with Figs

A beverage made by boiling barley water, figs, raisins, lemon juice, and rind, then straining.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 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 with Figs

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare and cook

  1. Stone and chop the raisins.

  2. In a pot, combine the chopped raisins, figs, lemon juice, lemon rind, water, and barley water.

  3. Boil the mixture until it reduces to 1 pint.

Finish

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

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

  2. Fig + barleytop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together48 recipes

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

  3. Raisin + barleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together57 recipes

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

  4. Fig + lemontop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together763 recipes

    Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

  5. Lemon + barleytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Figs
Add sweetness and body, giving the drink its flavour and a thicker texture.
Raisins
Add sweetness and depth of flavour as they soften and release their sugars during boiling.
Lemon
Adds acidity and aroma that brighten the sweetness of the dried fruit.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture until it reduces to 1 pint. Boiling concentrates the flavour and softens the dried fruit, but over-reducing makes the drink too thick and intense. Stop once the volume reaches 1 pint.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Cherryfits better
  3. Applefits better
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against fig, raisin, barley. 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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