Barley-water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the barley
Wash the barley with cold water.
Boil the barley in ½ cup of water for a short time to extract the coloring matter, then discard this water.
Make the barley water
Put the purified barley into 5 pints of boiling water.
Boil the mixture down to half its volume, then strain for use.
Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.
Photo for illustrative purposes only · Contact us to use it
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pearl barley
- Provides the starch and flavor that give the finished barley water its body and taste.
- Water
- Extracts flavor and soluble starch from the barley as it simmers and reduces.
The step that matters
Boil the barley in ½ cup of water and discard that water. This brief first boil pulls out the coloring matter from the barley. Discarding the water removes that color, so the final liquid stays pale.
“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.
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