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 Water II
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Mix barley flour and cold water in the upper part of a double boiler.
Gradually add boiling water and salt.
Cook
Cook over direct heat for 5 minutes, then in the double boiler for 15 minutes.
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.
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Barley + flourtop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together582 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Barley flour
- Its starch thickens the liquid as it cooks, giving the water body.
The step that matters
Gradually adding the boiling water. Adding the hot water slowly while stirring lets the flour's starch disperse evenly. Dumping it in at once makes lumps that are hard to smooth out.
“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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