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Dessert

Barley Jelly

A gelatinous dessert made from pearl barley, water, sugar, lemon juice, white wine, and isinglass.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and white wine are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 11% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,832 recipes. Both carry myrcene, which smells balsamic, herbaceous. The science ↓

Barley Jelly

Ingredients

Directions

Make the barley liquid

  1. In an iron saucepan, boil 1 cup of pearl barley with 2 quarts of cold water.

  2. Once it boils, pour off the water and add another quart of cold water.

  3. Let it simmer gently for 3 hours, stirring frequently with a wooden spoon.

  4. Strain the mixture and sweeten with white sugar.

Set the jelly

  1. Add the juice of 1 lemon, ⅓ cup of white wine, and ¼ ounce of isinglass dissolved in a little water.

  2. Pour the mixture into a mold and let it set.

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. Lemon + white winetop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,832 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  2. Barley + lemontop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together484 recipes

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

  3. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  4. Barley + white winetop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together55 recipes

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

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

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

Sugar and lemon 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 thickens the cooking liquid and gives the jelly body as it simmers.
Isinglass
A gelatin-like protein that sets the liquid into a firm jelly as it cools.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the flavour and balances the sugar.
White sugar
Adds sweetness to balance the lemon and the plain barley flavour.

The step that matters

Dissolving the isinglass before adding it. Isinglass must be fully dissolved in warm liquid so it spreads evenly; if clumps are added to the mixture, they will not set smoothly and the jelly can turn out patchy or grainy.

Swap the lemon

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

  1. Figfits better
  2. Vanillafits about as well
  3. Applefits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against barley, sugar, white wine. 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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