Barley Water
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the barley
Wash and pick the pearl barley.
Pour 1 cup of water over the barley.
Boil for 10 minutes.
Drain the barley.
Make the barley water
Add 3 cups of boiling water.
Boil the mixture down by half.
Strain through a fine sieve or muslin.
If desired, dissolve gum arabic in the liquid.
Sweeten to taste.
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.
Explore the science
What each ingredient does
- Pearl barley
- Provides the starch and flavour that give the drink its body and mild grain taste.
- Water
- Extracts flavour and soluble starch from the barley as it simmers.
- Gum arabic
- Adds body and a smoother mouthfeel to the finished liquid.
The step that matters
Boil the mixture down by half. Reducing the liquid concentrates the flavour and body extracted from the barley, so the drink tastes rich rather than thin. Stopping too early leaves it weak, while over-reducing makes it too strong.
“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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