Why it works: Barley and lemon work together. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 484 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Barley-water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the barley
Wash the pearl barley in cold water and discard the water.
Put the barley into a saucepan with boiling water; boil for a few minutes and discard this water as well.
Wash the barley again.
Make the barley water
Add the barley to a saucepan with water, sugar, and lemon rind; bring to a boil.
Continue boiling until only 1 pint of liquid remains.
Strain the mixture and add the lemon juice.
Serve when cold.
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.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
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.
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Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together484 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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Lemon + sugartop 18% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together53,532 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Barley + sugartop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together755 recipes
Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).
Lemon and sugar barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 53,532 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
- Pearl barley
- Its starch releases into the water during boiling, giving the drink body and a soft texture.
- Lemon
- Its juice adds acidity that brightens the sweetness and balances the flavour.
- Loaf sugar
- Adds sweetness to the drink.
The step that matters
Continue boiling until only 1 pint of liquid remains. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavour and the starch from the barley, so the drink has body. Stopping too early leaves it thin and weak; boiling too long makes it overly strong.
Swap the lemon
How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (barley, sugar):
- Vanillafits better
- Figfits better
- Raisinfits better
- Lemonthe original
Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar. 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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