Barley

[Maeve]

Nina Moliver talked about biblical bread at
the summer conference this year. The "staff of life" was not really the bread we eat today. She said the women woke at 4AM, coursely ground the barley, let it ferment
w/a sourdough starter and baked it fresh
for that morning's breakfast.

With all the talk about the necessity of neutralizing phytic acid in whole grains, I decided to use this method to make a nice morning cereal. I do not usually like barley. I find it too chewy.

I washed hulled barley and very lightly roasted it, just until it was dried. I then coursely ground it in a coffee grinder. (Avoid electrical appliances if it is your choice.) I then soaked the cracked grain in warm water to which a sprinkle of umeboshi vinegar had been added. I let it soak for about 1.5 - 2 days until it had fermented. It smelled bad -- like a fish bowl that needs cleaning -- so I washed it twice, then cooked it slowly w/a lot of water for about hour.

I divided the cereal in half and added a little light miso to half of it. I let it
sit overnight and heated it up the next morning. It makes a very digestable, tasty
morning porridge both with and without the miso.

Maeve

[BarleyBrains]

Hello!

I've been lurking here for more than a year, and I'm happy to finally have a question to raise, albeit a relatively simple one.

I am having trouble getting my barley just right. Tonight I attempted to cook the Barley/Millet/Squash grain dish we had the other day at Mana on Amsterdam and 90th here in the city, but it came out oatmealish. I've had problems before with barley (doesn't open) and with millet (soupy) separately. Usually we cook grains in an Ohsawa pot in our Fagor pressure cooker, but tonight, for the sake of time and space, we went with the foods straight in the Fagor. I soaked the barley for eight hours today and cooked it for an hour over low heat after coming to pressure. It came out burned on the bottom and liquid on top; after mixing it was eatable but not well done by any means.

Any suggestions? Tomorrow I may try straight barley in the Ohsawa Pot. I'm guessing it will take even longer judging by the way brown rice cooks in there.

[Nancy]

Hi Ryan,

I use Organic Barley as a staple grain and I always eat it fluffy with the grain well opened. I like to combine two or three grains in my grain dish or two grains with a third part pulse or beans. I recently cooked 1/3 c. brown rice, 1/3 c. barley, 1/3 c. hard winter wheat (wheat berries).

Try boiling instead of pressure cooking. I cooked the above equalling 1 c. of grains, not with the usual rice ratio of 1 c. rice to 2 c. water. Instead, I add an extra cup of water to further open the grain (1 c. grains to 3 c. water). Bring to a boil, cover, and simmer until done.

To open the grain further of any grain, add more water. Brown rice can be cooked with the ratio: 1:2, 1:3, 1:4, 1:5 and so on. At 1 c. grains to 5 c. water one has "porridge", or in the case of brown rice, "rice cream" which is very digestible and nourishing for those who are sick and cannot easily digest. All the goodness of the grain is still present.

Nancy

[BarleyBrains]

A new question for all you learned cooks: can barley be made into a proteinous seitan-type of dish the same way that wheat flour can be separated from its carbohydrate? I'd give it a try on my own, assuming that the chemistry is similar, but with such a resource as this forum at hand, I figured I'd spare the barley flour from potential ruin.

By the way, thanks for all the barley help below; I've since been experimenting heartily with the grain and am happy with the way I get non-pressure-cooked barley/brown rice mix to flower. This was of utmost importance to me as my wife and I were engaged in a barley field in the Himalaya!

Thanks,
Ryan