Have I sung the praises of barley, recently?

[capri0mni]

As of tonight, barley is my favorite grain. Even more than rice, or bulgar (aka wheat) or corn. Period. Om-Nom. More, please. Yes.

I've loved pearled barley for years. And came up with this vegan recipe a few years ago: Chickpea and barley vegie stew (substitute vegies and spices as taste and/or allergies require. I imagine it would also be yummy with black beans, or white navy beans, or... whatever).

Pearled barley is the refined, "white" version of the grain. And even refined, it has just as much fiber as brown rice, and takes just as long to cook (Exactly the same grain-to-liquid ratio and exactly the same cooking time). So I took cookbooks at their word that unrefined (aka "hulled," "pot" or "Scotch") barley was basically inedible.

But then, I started to look for and find recipes for hulled barley, that made it seem like it was even easier to cook, if you just pre-soaked it -- presoak it for a couple of hours, and then it only needs half an hour on the boil.

So, since barley isn't available in my local grocery any more (at least, not in the summer, when people don't think about cooking stews), I looked for, and found, a five-pound bag of hulled barley online. So I done bought it.

And tonight, I cooked some up for the first time. I presoaked it for ... oh, I dunno, 2 and a half hours, maybe, drained off that liquid, and then boiled it in fresh water (since rinsing it in a sieve is recommended, but I couldn't find my sieve). Sure enough, it was all puffed up, and perfectly al dente in half an hour, and it didn't need as much water as I used. And when I took the lid off the pot, I swear -- it smelled like warm toast, drizzled with honey.

Didn't taste exactly that sweet, but it was still nutty and chewy, and ... om-nom (I'm currently eating it with micro-zapped spinach and chicken drizzled with bottled Italian dressing).

One cooking/recipe site online suggested substituting cooked and chilled barley for pasta in any of your favorite pasta salad recipes. And I can totally see that. NB -- I'm imagining an om-nom pasta barley salad with peas, and diced red onion, and parsley and finely diced zuchini and tomato that would be perfect for (for yon Pagans out there) your Lammas potluck picnics, since Lammas is, traditionally, a celebration of the barley harvest.

Comments

[spiralsheep]

Sounds yummy.

Also, I can help you out with some songs if you want to sing barley's praise LITERALLY!!1!! ;-)

[capri0mni]

Well, I do know a version or three of this ballad of John Barleycorn.

But I really on the mission to sing the praises of chewy barley, as opposed to barley for sipping and gulping. It's the third most common grain grown in the U.S.; about half of that goes toward beer and whiskey making, and most of the remainder goes toward animal fodder. Which is all fine and dandy. But I'd like a bit of a larger portion to be destined for grocery shelves, so that when I ask a store clerk: "Where do you stock your barley?" I don't get blank stares, and the question: "What's barley?"

Oh, and for breakfast: warm, and drizzled with real maple syrup (or honey, but I live in a country where maple is native) -- Yum.

[capri0mni]

Oh, and there's this song-acting-out-game-rhyme thing I learned in in Kindergarten:

Thus the farmer sows his seed,
Thus he stands and takes his ease.
Stamps his foot, claps his hands,
And turns around to view the land.
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows.
Oats, peas, beans, and barley grows.
You don’t, I don’t, nobody knows,
How oats, peas, beans and barley grows.