[Sca-cooks] barley water

[Stefan li Rous]

Phillipa commented:
<<< Your menu sounds so wonderful. Wish I could attend!  Are you  
going to
make your own barley water? Do you have a recipe? >>>

I'm a bit behind in reading my digests so I'm not sure if Gunthar has  
posted a reply to this yet or not.

I have found barley water available in bags, similar to tea bags, at  
an Asian grocery. But it is rather uncommon and it may take some  
searching for.

There are also some recipes in this file:
infusions-msg     (24K)  3/26/02    Period infusions. Herbal "teas".  
Barley tea.


Such as:
<<< _Le Menagier de Paris_. (The Goodman of Paris, c. 1395)  
Translated by
Janet Hinson. Reprinted in _A Collection of Medieval and Renaissance
Cookbooks: First Compiled by Duke Cariadoc of the Bow and The Duchess
Diana Alena_. Fifth Edition (1992) Volume Two, published privately. Page
M38-39 Beverages for Invalids

Sweet Tisane
Take water and boil it, then add for each sixth of a gallon of water one
good bowl of barley, and it does not (or it does not matter? - Trans) if
it (p. 238) still has its hulls, and get two parisis' worth of licorice,
item, or figs, and boil it all until the barley bubbles; then let it be
strained in two or three cloths, and put in each goblet a large amount
of rock-sugar. This barley is good to feed to poultry to fatten them.
Note that good licorice is the youngest, and when cut is a lively
greenish colour, and if it is old it is more insipid and dead, and  
dry >>>

Another recipe, with redaction, in this file:
<<< > Recipe 30 from fragment V: the pearled barley is boiled
 > (presumably in water), then chopped in a morter.  Then it's thinned
 > with with almond milk, strained through a thick napkin, and set to
 > cook as said above.  All ordiat should have white sugar put in it.

I went ahead & played with the third recipe(#30 from Fragment V)  
based on
Brighid's paraphrasing which matched my own gleanings.
Here's what I came up with:

Eden's Ordiate:
1/4 c. barley
3. c. boiling water
1 pinch salt
1 c. ground almonds
4 c. boiling water
1/8 c. sugar

Cook barley in 3. c. boiling water w/pinch of salt for 1 hour (till  
soft)
drain off water mash barley in food processor.
Make almond milk: combine almonds with 4 c. boiling water stir & let  
sit for
5 mins or so.
Add to pureed barley.  Shmoosh around a bit, then strain in fine wire
strainer.
Add 1/8 c. sugar
Heat to a boil, let boil about 5 mins till it thickens slightly.
Restrained through wire strainer plus cheesecloth to remove slight
grainyness
Serve

Very tasty warm milky beverage.  Good for breakfast, right before  
bedtime,
or indeed if you were feeling ooky as it was originally intended ;->   
but
not something to serve at a feast.  even better when sprinkled with a  
pinch
of cinnamon, which is a standard instruction with medieval spanish  
dishes.

The glop that I strained out (mooshed barley with the ground almonds  
from
the almond milk) is probably closer to recipe #98 and tasted exactly  
like
oatmeal :->

so either way - as a drink or a glop it's quite yummy
Eden

Eden Rain >>>

Stefan
--------
THLord Stefan li Rous    Barony of Bryn Gwlad    Kingdom of Ansteorra
    Mark S. Harris           Austin, Texas           
StefanliRous at austin.rr.com
**** See Stefan's Florilegium files at:  http://www.florilegium.org ****