Pearl Barley

This is a hot pudding I remember my mother often making years ago.
It is best to make this with cooking apples, which give off lots of juice.
It can also be made with millet or pearl barley instead of rice.

Ingredients

200g long grain rice
250ml milk
250ml water
3 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of granulated sugar
1 teaspoon of ground cinnamon
600g of Bramley apples

Method

Put the rice in a saucepan with the milk and water.
Cook gently, stirring often till all the liquid is absorbed.
Stir in 1 tablespoon of sugar and 1 tablespoon of butter.
Leave to cool.
Pre-heat the oven to GM4 – 180°C.
Peel and core the apples and chop them into small chunks.
Mix them with the cinnamon and 2 tablespoons of sugar.
Butter an oven proof dish.
Put half the rice mixture on the base.
Put all the apple mixture on top.
Cover with the rest of the rice.
Dot 2 tablespoons of butter over the top.
Bake for around 50 minutes.
Serve hot.

Served in – Johnson Brothers Green Pear bowls – 1960 – 1979.

I got the idea for cooking pearl barley this way after making krupnik which is the name of the very traditional Polish pearl barley soup.

Pearl or pearled barley, is whole grain barley that has been processed to remove its fibrous outer hull and polished to remove some or all of the bran layer. It is the most common form of barley for cooking.

Pęczak is the Polish for pearled barley.

Seeds and grains such as barley, buckwheat and millet were popular in Poland long before potatoes. Rice used to be very expensive, especially before World War 2.

You can cook pearl barley by either boiling it in salted water or using the absorption method with three times the volume of water to pearl barley, to get a very good plain addition to a meal.

This method adds some cooked vegetables and lots of taste and I think the use of the dried mushrooms is a must.

Ingredients

10g dried mushrooms
1.5 litres of chicken stock or vegetable stock
3 carrots
2 parsnips
3 stalks of celery *(or half a celeriac)
4-5 peppercorns
2-3 allspice grains
Salt & ground black pepper
150g of pearl barley

Method

Cover the mushrooms with boiling water and leave overnight.
Chop the mushrooms into small pieces.
Add the chopped mushrooms and the liquor from soaking to a saucepan of stock.
Peel and grate the carrots on a medium grater.
Peel and chop the parsnips into small pieces,
Chop the celery stalks fine.*
Add the carrots, parsnips and celery to the stock.
Add the peppercorns and allspice to the pot.
Bring to the boil.
Rinse the pearl barley with cold water.
Add the pearl barley to the soup and bring back to the boil.
Cook for around 5 minutes.
Cover the pot with a lid.
Turn the heat down and simmer for around 30 minutes.
Check that the pearl barley is nearly cooked.
Continue simmering and stirring until all the liquid has been absorbed.
Check the seasonings.
*
*If using celeriac – peel, cook the whole piece – remove when nearly cooked and chop into small pieces and put back in.