A Brief Guide To Cooking Pearl Barley

A majority of people would like to know how to cook barley and for this to be a success they will have to have several facts with them. Barley is part of the whole grain family which is mostly used in soups and stews. It can also be used as a side dish and also as a salad and in some cases for chicken sauces. It is classified into and this is hulled barley and pearl barley. Hulled barley is also referred to as barley groats and is the least processed as well as being the most nutritious and rich in fiber.

Pearl barley on the other hand includes outer bran which is scrubbed off lessening its nutritious and is different from hulled barley. It is however the most popular because of its softness and also its ability to cook quickly. When you are preparing barley you have to pre-soak it overnight to be able to lessen its cooking time. Hulled and pearl barley are not the only categories of barley. Other types of barley include rolled barley or flaked barley, hato mugi barley, black barley, sprouting barley as well as scotch or pot barley.

Pearl barley is one of the easiest to prepare and this will require you to follow several steps. Preparing pearl barley properly will not necessarily require any complicated culinary skills or cooking techniques. You have two choices of preparing barley and this will include pre-soaking the barley overnight or simply cooking barley without any advanced preparation. For those who really stress on convenience, then the pre-soaking option will definitely be their best. There are several things you will need to have with you before starting cooking the barley.

The barley is the first ingredient that should be available as is water and also a pot that has a tight fitting lid. The cooking process can now be started with the first step being the rinsing of the barley with a strainer followed by picking out of any debris that may have made it through the processing. You should then allow the barley to soak overnight in water or broth in order to reduce its cooking time. The water used here should be twice the amount of barley for example 1 cup of barley should be accompanied with 2 cups of water.

You should then decide if you will be using water or broth to boil the barley. You should then use 2 ? to 3 cups of liquid to 1 cup barley and then add the liquid to the pot. You should then wait for the water or broth to come to boil. You should then add the barley to the boiled water or broth and stir. The pot should then be covered with a lid and the heat reduced to low. This should then let to cook for 15 minutes. if you did not pre-soak the barley it should let to cook for 40 minutes.