Barley

Using presliced fresh mushrooms and frozen chopped onions will hurry things along in this recipe.

One Friday morning when I arrived at Philippe and Caroline’s home, the family was in full Shabbat swing. Four of Caroline’s nine children were nearby to help with preparations for the Sabbath. Caroline was assembling ingredients for cholent, based on a recipe that came with her family from Poland. Caroline makes cholent each week, cooking it all night in a slow cooker and serving it at lunch on Saturday. She simmers the meat in red wine, adds some barley and sometimes bulgur, and uses vegetable oil instead of the traditional chicken shmaltz.

Eveline Weyl remembers growing up in France with a green-wheat soup, served every Friday evening. “We called it gruen kern or soupe au blé vert, and it was made, basically, by simmering onions and carrots and using green wheat to thicken the broth,” she told me. “My mother said it was very healthy for us children.” I asked all over for a recipe for this dish but couldn’t find one. Then, watching a Tunisian videographer from Paris taking photographs of his mother making soup, I realized that the soup Tunisians call shorbat freekeh, made with parched wheat, is nearly the same as the green-wheat soup for which I had been searching. Young green wheat is available at select health-food stores these days, and made into juice. Ferik or freekeh is the parched substitute. I like this soup so much that I often use barley, bulgur, wheat berries, or lentils if I can’t find the green wheat. In fourteenth-century Arles, Jews ate many different kinds of grains and legumes. Chickpeas, which came from the Middle East, and green wheat were probably two of them. The original recipe for this soup called for lamb bones, but I prefer a vegetarian version. The tomato paste is, of course, a late addition.

This Anatolian peasant soup with the delicate flavor of mint and saffron is magnificent. I make it when I have a roast chicken carcass or, better still, when I have two and have remembered to retain the cooking juices and melted fat.

Traditionally, the Berbers first made couscous with barley, and barley couscous is still very popular, especially in the south of Morocco. It is now available in precooked form from some Middle Eastern stores. You can substitute ordinary couscous. You can make the broth with lamb, beef, or veal (preferably shoulder, neck fillet, or knuckle) and with a choice of vegetables. According to local lore, seven is a magic number that brings good luck. Onions, tomatoes, and chili peppers count as flavorings, so you must have seven more vegetables. I have listed eight, so drop one. The number of ingredients makes it seem a scary endeavor, but it is only a matter of throwing things into a pot, and it makes a spectacular one-dish meal for a large party. You will need a very big pot.

The darker mushrooms yield a richer flavor, so give them a try. As always, my favorite seasoning for barley is fresh dill. See menu on page 206.

This comforting classic thickens considerably as it stands, resulting in a generous quantity of soup. Each time you reheat it, thin it with additional water, and adjust the seasonings. Or, once your original batch cools, consider freezing half of it for later use. This soup is a meal in itself. All you need is a good bread and a salad—simple or bountiful, as you prefer.

Pork tenderloin is a lean, quick-cooking cut of meat. Here it's roasted with apples and served with warm barley.

This dish features aromatic ingredients used in Persian cuisine; barberries and tart cherries are both sweet and sour, the defining flavors of Persian foods. Find these ingredients at the ethnic food sellers listed in the Resources section (page 193), or substitute more dried apricots for the barberries and dried cranberries for the cherries. The dried rose petals give this dish its distinct floral taste and stunning appearance. Find them at gourmet and Middle Eastern food stores, or dry your own on a screen. Serve with Green Rice (page 190) and Cucumber Yogurt (page 184).

Rice has pride of place at the Korean table, but Koreans have also long embraced the healthful properties of other whole grains like millet, barley, and oats. This combination is fragrant and delicious.

Cups of this calming grain tea, extolled for its digestive properties, are poured throughout Korean meals as Westerners would provide water. In the winter, the tea is usually served hot, while in the summer months, it comes cool or at room temperature.

Lightly poached eggs add luxurious body and sophistication to this weeknight soup.

Pearl barley makes a wonderful risotto: It retains its distinct chew while easily releasing its starch to create a risotto as creamy as one made with Arborio rice — and with barely any stirring. Since I can't be bothered to make vegetable stocks ahead and I don't like canned versions, I've made the most of the asparagus in this dish. Using the stalks, tips, and even the cooking water makes the risotto sing with asparagus's springtime flavor.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are from China Modern by Ching-He Huang. In Chinese, Xi-fan means "watery rice." This modern version contains both brown rice and mixed whole grains.

This speedy version of the long-cooked classic is light and brothy, but it's still substantial and flavorful enough — thanks to lamb, kale, and barley — to be a great winter meal.

Kutia This lightly sweetened pudding is the first of 12 traditional dishes served on Christmas Eve in Eastern Europe. Countries such as the Ukraine, Poland, and Lithuania each have their own version, sometimes chilled, sometimes served as a warm porridge. (The dish used to be a tradition in Russia as well, but because of the communist Soviet Union's official atheism, it has become extinct there.) Our version is based on the baked Ukrainian style, which is traditionally made with wheat berries, which require overnight soaking and long cooking. For convenience, we've substituted quick-cooking barley, which packs the same nutty-chewy punch. For the best results, prepare the pudding a day ahead: Let it cool, cover it, and chill it overnight to let the flavors meld. Serve it chilled, plain or sprinkled with cinnamon-sugar.

Tender pieces of short rib and barley add body to a delicate herbal broth you can make ahead and enjoy for days.

Editor's note: The recipe and introductory text below are excerpted from Joan Nathan's book The Foods of Israel Today. Nathan also shared some helpful cooking tips exclusively with Epicurious, which we've added at the bottom of the page. To read more about Nathan and Israeli cuisine, click here. According to the Ten Commandments, "On the seventh day thou shalt rest," which means that no cooking can be done on the Sabbath. This tradition is the reason Israel is truly the center of the world for cholent, an overnight stew. Almost all Jewish families have brought their own unique versions — with Hungarian smoked goose breast, Brazilian black beans, Moroccan rice, Bukharan turkey giblets and raisin-stuffed cucumbers, or Polish barley and meat. A dish that has experienced a rebirth even among secular Israelis in the last few years, cholent is often served as a centerpiece main course for parties, usually blending several traditions in one exciting creation. Eons ago, needing a dish that could be kept warm for the Sabbath, Jewish cooks came up with an overnight stew, the ingredients for which varied depending on where they lived. The stew was tightly sealed, often with a paste-like dough, and cooked before the Sabbath began, then left overnight in the embers to warm until the next day. During World War II, before Israelis had proper ovens, the cholent often was simmered over the small flame of a kerosene stove, the lid covered with two heavy bricks. The word cholent comes from the French chaud, meaning "warm," and lent, meaning "slow." In Israel, it is also called hamim, Hebrew for "warm." Like outdoor grilling, preparing cholent seems to have become the Israeli man's domain. It is served on every Israeli army base on Saturday, even in small military units on their own at lookout posts throughout the country, since the army, which officially observes the dietary laws, must serve a traditional Sabbath meal. This Hebronite hamim recipe was given to me by Amnon Lipkin Shachak, a former Israeli army chief of staff. He combines the Ashkenazic basic beans and barley with Sephardic sausages and the long-cooking eggs in their shells called huevos haminadav to make an innovative Sabbath dish from Hebron, the city from which part of his family hails. According to him, the recipe changes each time he makes it, depending on what he can find in the cupboard. This version requires kishke (a traditional delicacy made of flour and fat stuffed into sausage casing, today obtainable from Jewish specialty stores) and the robust and highly aromatic eastern Mediterranean spice combination of baharat (see Tips, below).

One of Morocco's major grains, barley brings a malt-like flavor to this surprisingly light bread. Nigella seeds add a pleasant crunch and just the faintest hint of onion. To order the barley flour and nigella seeds, visit kalustyans.com.

This vegetarian gravy is layered with bold flavors — from the onions to the roasted mushrooms and barley — each of which makes a real statement. Even our carnivorous food editors agree it's one of the best gravies they've ever tasted.

This luxurious soup soothes on a wintry day, warming the palate with rich duck confit, sweet root vegetables, and earthy barley. Pearl barley, by definition, has had some of its bran removed, but we found that different brands varied widely. Higher-fiber varieties will have a slightly longer cooking time.

An old-fashioned drink that was traditionally given to children.

Barley replaces rice in this twist on the classic Italian risotto.