Pearl Barley vs. "Medium" barley
So, in a fit of impulsivity I slapped down $1.19 for a bag of barley. However, there's no cooking instructions on it. It is labeled "medium barley". I suspect that this means it is unhulled? All the barley recipes I seem to run across call for pearl barley. How much longer will I need to cook this than pearl barley?
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3 Comments:
If you bought it in a grocery store, it's probably pearl or polished barley. I went looking for the hulled stuff, and had a heck of a time finding it.
Hulled barely looks different. More like a seed, with sort of striations on the outer layer. The ends are a little pointier that the pearl. The hull has been removed, but the bran is still there. Pearl barley is a whitish color with a darker stripe in it and it's more rounded then the hulled stuff.
Completely unhulled barley isn't sold in stores, since the hull is inedible, as far as humans go.
You cook them the same way, but the hulled barley cooks longer and the result it chewier because of the bran. The hulled is better for you in terms of the fiber, but I grew up eating the pearl, so that's what I think of as barley.
dbcurrie at 3:55PM on 03/01/09
Barley.
kjgibson at 8:09PM on 03/01/09
Thanks everyone.
Checking epicurious, it would appear that pearl barley come in coarse, medium or fine. Perhaps I have purchased medium pearl barley.
Amandarama at 10:21AM on 03/02/09