Name: Barley-water
Ingredients: 1 handful common barley; 3 pints water; a bit of lemon peel

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

1 handful common barley
3 pints water
a bit of lemon peel

Directions

Wash the barley.
Simmer the barley gently in 3 pints of water with a bit of lemon peel.
Cook until the barley is tender.
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.

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.

Barley + lemontop 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

Common barley: Its starch thickens the water slightly and gives the drink a mild, grainy body.
Lemon peel: Adds aromatic oils that give the drink a light citrus flavour.

“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.