Ingredient

Barley

Barley is one of the oldest cultivated grains and it has been comprehensively overshadowed by wheat and rice. It deserves better: it is cheap, it keeps, it has a chewy, nutty character nothing else quite matches, and it does something to a soup that no other grain does.

Pearl, pot and the rest

Pearl barley

Polished to remove the husk and most of the bran. Cooks in around thirty minutes, no soaking, pale and soft. The common one and what most recipes mean.

Pot or hulled barley

Only the inedible outer husk removed, bran intact. Chewier, nuttier, browner, and takes considerably longer — often an hour and better for a soak. Nutritionally more substantial.

Barley flakes

Rolled like oats. For porridge and baking.

Barley flour

Low in gluten, so used alongside wheat flour rather than instead of it. Slightly sweet and malty.

Malted barley

Sprouted and kilned, for brewing and for malt extract and malt vinegar. A different product entirely.

Gluten

Barley contains gluten. It is not a gluten-free grain, and this catches people out because it is less obvious than wheat.

Why it thickens a soup

Barley is unusually high in a soluble fibre called beta-glucan, the same substance that makes porridge oats gluey. As barley cooks, that fibre and its starch leach into the surrounding liquid.

The result is that a barley soup thickens and takes on a silky, slightly viscous body that a rice or pasta soup does not. Scotch broth gets its character as much from this as from the lamb.

It has two practical consequences. A barley soup keeps thickening, in the pot and overnight in the fridge, and usually needs loosening the next day. And if you do not want it to thicken — in a salad, say — cook the barley separately in plenty of water, drain it, and rinse it.

It is also why barley makes an excellent risotto substitute: the same starch release that thickens a soup gives an orzotto the creaminess risotto rice provides, with much more chew and considerably less stirring.

What to do with it

• Scotch broth — lamb, barley, root vegetables, long slow cooking. The definitive British barley dish.
• Mushroom and barley soup, which is Eastern European and Jewish home cooking and one of the great cheap dishes.
• Orzotto. Cooked like a risotto with stock, onion, wine, and finished with butter and cheese. More forgiving than risotto because barley does not turn to mush.
• In a grain salad, boiled separately, drained and rinsed, with herbs, roasted vegetables and a sharp dressing. It holds its chew better than most grains.
• In a stew, where it thickens and stretches the dish.
• As a side grain, dressed with butter and herbs.
• Toasted first, in a dry pan or with butter, which deepens the nuttiness considerably and is worth the two minutes.

Cooking it

1. Rinse it. Pearl barley in particular carries starch dust that will cloud your liquid.
2. Soak pot barley for a few hours or overnight. Pearl barley does not need it, though an hour speeds things up.
3. For a soup or stew, add it directly and let it cook in the liquid — the thickening is the point.
4. For a salad or a side, boil it in plenty of salted water like pasta, for around thirty minutes for pearl or an hour for pot, until tender with a distinct chew.
5. Drain and rinse under cold water if you want the grains separate and non-sticky.
6. Taste rather than timing it. Barley is done when it is chewy-tender, and it does not collapse if you overshoot slightly — which is one of its virtues.

Common questions