(Please note: this is not a very adventuresome adventure.)
There is a teeny-tiny piece of a plastic bag that has been floating around my kitchen for about 2 years, because it has a recipe printed on it for barley-apple pudding. I thought this sounded like (a) a virtuous breakfast food and (b) a good way to use up some of the 9 metric tons of barley I bought. Even I cannot eat Scotch broth that often.
I finally got around to making the recipe last weekend. My usual rule is to follow the recipe the first time I make it, but this called for raisins, which I dislike, and the whole thing had half a teaspoon of cinnamon in it. For a heap o’ barley cooked in a 2-qt casserole dish, that is just not enough spice.
So I sauteed the apples with plenty of cinnamon, added a bunch more, substituted currants for the raisins, and just to be saucy added chopped crystallized ginger too.
BORING.
It smells divine, but the best thing about eating it is really the apples (of which I used twice the amount called for [the apples were about to go]). It’s virtuous all right – to the point of narcolepsy. It’s as if the barley sucked the flavor right out of everything and won’t give it back.
I’m still deciding whether to keep it for tinkering or finally throw that little scrap of plastic away.
I really do have a LOT of barley.
Half a TEASPOON? Are they INSANE?!!! Get out the pumpkin pie spicing, it’ll make it better. Perhaps with extra ginger. Also, cooked barley in bread is just lovely. Been making the whole wheat bread from the Artisan book, and adding sunflower seeds to get some selenium. Perhaps barley would be grand as well.
Dang, I love that Artisan book. It’s soooper geeeenius.
I would be happier, too, if the barley were smaller. Baby barley, perhaps. Or barely. (har har har)
Ground barley flour is fantastic in bread 1 to 3 ratio with wheat flour. Barley can be used for stuffing in roasted meats. Barley subs for rice in a lot of dishes. But barley is the anitimatter of flavour at times however very good for sore tummy.
You know, I’m pretty sure I have a bread recipe somewhere that calls for a pile of cooked barley.