Barley, Mung Beans, Sweet Potato Dessert
With the quick-cook mung bean cooking tip I came across online, cooking this heat-alleviating dessert has become so much easier, especially at the spur of the moment.
Showing posts with label barley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barley. Show all posts
Chicken Barley Soup/ Light Stew 薏仁鸡汤
Cook (more of) this on Sunday, and there will be leftovers for another
easy weeknight dinner the week ahead. Soup or light stew, a
comforting and satisfying dish to have, especially during the cold
winter months.
This is not my first time cooking Chicken Barley Soup but it is the first time I make it a point to "document" the dish in this blog/website.
Barley is a well-known natural diuretic that helps in curing water retention. This grain is a well-rounded ingredient with fiber (both soluble and insoluble), vitamins (good source of Vitamin B-6), and minerals (e.g. high in magnesium, iron) that maintains overall good health.
I usually add barley when making quinoa and millet congee, turning it to a multi-grain congee. You can also use barley for dessert-soups or savory soups. Or most simply, cook barley water by boiling barley in water! In this dish, barley adds the magical touch of thickening the soup quite a bit, turning it to a stew.
Winter Melon Barley Soup 冬瓜薏仁汤
Straight after I tried a winter melon soup in a Chinese (Cantonese) restaurant at the South Bay recently, I had the immediate urge to cook something similar at home. It was a clear soup, light yet super flavorful, filled with natural sweetness and delicious savoriness, quite different from the usual winter melon soup I cook at home. I did not have the exact recipe and while I sipped it, had to look hard at each scoopful of soup (till the bottom of the soup pot) for ingredients that have gone into the soup. I saw large cubes of winter melon, huge chucks of pork, thin slices of orange peel and little pearls of barley. OK. I can make this. And, I will make this.
I was planning to cook this soup and a week after, coincidentally saw another super interesting idea related to winter melon at Taste Hong Kong's Snowy Winter Melon Soup. Alright! I am going to pulverize my winter melon to get that snowy silky texture in this "new" soup that I am going to cook at home!
Napa Cabbage Hulled Barley Soup
Currently, we are experiencing wintry weather as a way to welcome Spring. What a damper!
And staying home to cook a hearty soup is my way to welcome the rain, winds and Spring. I am using these YIFON mushrooms in this everyday home-cooked fare. To have a little spice factor - I combined some Spicy Bailing Mushrooms - 白灵菇 and some Assorted Mushrooms-三味菇 in a vegetables and barley soup.
Practice makes perfect. I think I am getting better at creating tasty vegetarian dishes. Nah, vegetarian dishes are not bland. In fact, they can be flavorsome and delicious...ahem...speaking from this non-vegetarian here. And seriously, it is not difficult to develop flavors in vegetarian dishes. It is not the (huge) amount of oil you have to use. And you don't have to over-depend on excessively-rich, heavy hot sauces.
How then?
Hulled Barley, Pearl Barley, Soup Recipes
Like how I grew up eating white rice, I was also more familiar with pearl barley in a barley drink anytime, when I was younger.
Pearl Barley
For the past one year, white grain has been "out" of my pantry as I made my choice on brown rice to be the rice staple. Ever since I tried, love and accepted other grains/seeds such as quinoa and millet, I have also gradually used (and eaten) less and less rice as I have so many other choices! (I still have my steamed white rice when I dine out, or even when I need to cook with white rice for the characteristic texture and taste, I buy them from the bulk section at Whole Foods Market - buy the quantity I need - no wastage!)
Hulled Barley
It is only recent that I tried hulled barley. The fact is, I don't cook with barley as often as I should have. So it took me a while to experiment with barley and discover the better barley - Hulled Barley.
To Soak or Not to Soak ?
Pearl barley vs Hulled barley, analogous to White Rice vs Brown Rice. One has most of the nutrients stripped while the other maintains its good nutrition due to minimal processing when the grain is harvested. Different from pearl barley which you can use without prior soaking, hulled barley cooks faster and better after it is soaked. The recommendation is to soak them overnight. But fact is, what happens when you decided not to use it the next day?
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