Cooking With Barley

[poliphilo]

I made lemon barley water this morning.

Apparently it's good for you in all sorts of ways.

I simmered two ounces of pearl barley in a quart of water for half an hour (all measurements approx), strained off the water, added the grated rind and juice of one lemon, then allowed it to cool.

The recipe I was following also calls for honey, ginger and cinammon- but I don't see why. I tasted it. Ailz tasted it- and we agreed it was fine as it was. 

Then, at the recipe writer's suggestion, I improvised a soup around the cooked barley- and that's what we had for lunch.

Comments

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

I've never had barley like that. Barley as an addition to vegetable soup is quite nice, I think.

Lemon-barley water sounds a long way from my personal experience and quite possibly destined to stay that way. I have seen oatmeal water and, though I'm sure the differences are great, I want no part of that, either.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

What do you guys call a fruit flavoured concentrate that you dilute with water? Well, lemon barley is one of those. I drank a lot of it when I was a kid. I assure you it's really quite nice- if you like that sort of thing.

[michaleen.livejournal.com]

Good question: I don't know that we have a formalized term in colloquial use for a fruit-flavored concentrate. A fruit drink might be called some sort of "-ade", patterned upon "lemonade". Made from concentrate, I suppose we would simply call it "instant lemonade".

The iconic instant fruit-flavored drink of my generation was Kool-Aid, which at least in my day was made from a concentrated powder, sold in packets, to which was added water and sugar. I suspect that lemon barley is much better, obviously.

My wife's grandfather was from Edinburgh, so despite the fact she was born and raised in Managua, she loves lemon-flavored oatmeal water, which sounds suspciciously like your lemon barley water, only with more mucilage.