{"id":1476,"date":"2009-09-26T13:44:28","date_gmt":"2009-09-26T18:44:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=1476"},"modified":"2009-09-26T13:44:28","modified_gmt":"2009-09-26T18:44:28","slug":"barley-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/?p=1476","title":{"rendered":"Barley season"},"content":{"rendered":"

t-barley-season-0.JPG<\/a>
\nIs it soup yet?<\/em><\/p>\n

Barley is not at all hard to find in the United States, but I don’t think I’ve ever known a traditional cook who uses it. That’s a shame, because not only is barley a fantastic comfort food, its glycemic index is very low — 25. The best soup I ever had was a Scotch broth in a little restaurant in Scotland. It was partly the barley that made the broth so nice and thick (and probably a few sheep bones). Barley can be cooked and served like rice. Or it can be used in risotto instead of rice. In Mediterranean cooking, risotto is a comfort food that probably occupies the same niche as mashed potatoes to us Celtic types.<\/p>\n

I bought a bag of barley from the Yadkin Valley General Store<\/a>, since I knew we’d be getting soup weather before long. I assume the barley came from Pennsylvania, since that’s where this store gets most of its stock. It’s certainly soup weather today: 61 degrees outside with rain and drizzle. I made the season’s first big pot of vegetable soup and included a couple of generous scoops of barley.<\/p>\n

I love to have a pot of soup on the stove on cool, rainy days when I have nowhere to go. I’m generous with the garlic. To me, garlic is a vegetable, not just a seasoning. If you crush the cloves lightly but don’t chop them, the garlic flavor won’t overpower the soup.<\/p>\n

Soon I want to experiment with some barley risotto. This recipe from Gourmet<\/em> magazine for roasted cauliflower barley risotto<\/a> looks inspiring.<\/p>\n

t-barley-season-1.JPG<\/a>
\nPearled barley<\/em><\/p>\n

t-barley-season-3.JPG<\/a>
\nPeeled garlic…<\/em><\/p>\n

t-barley-season-4.JPG<\/a>
\n…after a few licks with a cutting board to crush them just a bit<\/em><\/p>\n

t-barley-season-2.JPG<\/a>
\nRaw soup with a heap of barley. Yes, that’s a bag of frozen mixed vegetables, but I did use fresh onions, cabbage, celery, etc.<\/em><\/p>\n

t-barley-season-5.JPG<\/a>
\nIt’s started simmering. Three hours to go.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Is it soup yet? Barley is not at all hard to find in the United States, but I don’t think I’ve ever known a traditional cook who uses it. That’s a shame, because not only is barley a fantastic comfort food, its glycemic index is very low — 25. The best soup I ever had … Continue reading “Barley season”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1476","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-food"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1476"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1476\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1476"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1476"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acornabbey.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1476"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}