Pearl Barley
1/2 cup pearl barley 2 1/2 cups boiling water 1 teaspoon salt Put the barley into a small saucepan. Pour boiling water over it, and whip it with a batter whip. Pour off the water. Pour on more boiling water, whip again, and pour off the water. Repeat the process till the barley is thoroughly clean, and the water that is poured off is clear. Put the washed barley, water, and salt into the inner part of a double boiler, and put the two parts of the double boiler together, with boiling water in the outer part, and continue the cooking for five hours, keeping the cover on the inner part of the double boiler, of course. Or the barley may be cooked in a fireless cooker. If so small a quantity of cereal as this recipe calls for is cooked in a fireless cooker, it will be necessary to use heated soap-stones in the cooker, or to set the dish containing the cereal in a larger dish of boiling water, in order to have a sufficient volume of heat to hold the cereal at the cooking temperature for a sufficient length of time. Even then it may be well to remove the cereal from the cooker and reheat it once during the cooking. Serve with cream.
To stir raisins into cooked pearl barley makes a palatable blend of flavors. Use three-fourths cup to the quantity of cereal given in the preceding recipe. To cook cracked wheat, whole wheat, Scotch oatmeal, or coarse hominy, follow the directions given for cooking pearl barley, varying the quantity of water according to the cereal. Stirring figs cut in small pieces into cooked Scotch oatmeal makes a very palatable dish.
A five-hour double-boiler porridge from the era before quick-cooking grains. Modern pearl barley is milled and polished more thoroughly than the barley of 1910 and needs a fraction of that time.
- Cooking timeToday's pearl barley is usually tender in 40 to 50 minutes of gentle simmering, or about 20 minutes in a pressure cooker. Five hours will reduce it to a smooth paste, which suits a breakfast cereal but is more than most modern uses call for.
- The washing stepThe recipe frames the repeated whipping and draining as washing the grain until the poured-off water runs clear; it also carries off surface starch. A sieve under cold running water, worked with the fingers until the water runs clear, does much the same job in a minute.
- Batter whipA wire whisk with a broad, flat head, used for beating batters. Any whisk or even a fork will serve here; the point is agitation, not aeration.
- Double boilerUsed because a direct flame scorches starchy cereal over long cooking. A heavy-bottomed pan on the lowest setting, or a heatproof bowl over simmering water, works the same way. Keep it covered so the liquid does not boil away.
- Fireless cookerAn insulated box, sometimes fitted with preheated soapstone discs, that held food at temperature without fuel. A vacuum flask or thermal retained-heat cooker is the closest modern equivalent; a slow cooker on low will also do the job, though it supplies heat continuously rather than storing it.
- Liquid ratioHalf a cup of barley to two and a half cups of water is a five-to-one ratio, correct for a soft porridge. For barley meant to stay in separate grains, use three cups liquid per cup of barley.
- Other grainsCracked wheat and Scotch (pinhead) oatmeal generally cook faster than barley, roughly 20 to 30 minutes, and take proportionally less water; coarse hominy is the slowest of the group. The recipe says only to vary the quantity of water according to the cereal, so adjust so the grain is just covered as it swells.
- YieldAbout two and a half cups cooked, serving two to three at breakfast. The raisin version, with three-quarters of a cup of raisins, is noticeably sweeter and stretches to three.