Vol. XXI · Grains, Rice and Noodles Plate 8 of 10whole grains, barley, oats, millet, farro, wild rice, quinoa, buckwheat, sorghum, pseudocereals, saponins, soaking grains, cooking times, 杂粮, 小米, 荞麦TH

Whole Grains and Pseudocereals.

Rolled oats are ready in five minutes; whole oat groats need an hour. Same grain — one was steamed and flattened, the other still has its bran.

Whole grains cook the way rice does (XXI.3): they must absorb water and gelatinise through. What varies is how fast water gets in. Intact bran is a barrier (XXI.1), so whole groats take far longer than pearled (polished) or cracked ones, and the square law (II.2) makes small grains like millet and quinoa much faster than large ones like wheat berries or wild rice. Processing changes everything: steel-cut oats are chopped groats, rolled oats are steamed and flattened, bulgur is cracked wheat that has been boiled and dried, so each cooks faster than the last.

Pseudocereals are seeds of plants that are not grasses but are cooked like grains. Quinoa's seed coat carries saponins, bitter soapy compounds that must be rinsed off (most sold quinoa is pre-washed). Buckwheat (荞麦), unrelated to wheat and gluten-free, is toasted into kasha or milled for soba (XXVIII.9). Millet (小米) is a true cereal and a northern Chinese staple, cooked into 小米粥. The workshop compares cooking times.

Below: typical simmering times and water ratios for whole grains and pseudocereals (common published guidance), the grain you choose highlighted, and the time saved by soaking it first.

What you will learn
Workshop
Simmering times and water-to-grain ratios by volume: typical values from common cooking guidance, for the unsoaked grain. Soaking overnight taken to cut the time of grains over 30 minutes by about a third (teaching value for water already absorbed, XX.8).

Bran and size set the clock

The times span more than ten-fold, from five minutes for rolled oats to an hour for wheat berries, and they follow two things: whether the bran is intact and how big the grain is. Pearl barley, polished of most of its bran, cooks in about 35 minutes; hulled barley, with its bran, nearer an hour. Soaking the slow grains overnight lets them take up water in advance and cuts their time by about a third, as with beans (XX.8). Toasting grains in a dry pan or a little fat before simmering (as for pilaf) deepens their flavour and helps keep them separate.

Two cooking styles cover most needs. Absorption, as for rice, with measured water and a lid, for quinoa, millet, buckwheat and bulgur. Pasta-style, boiled in plenty of salted water and drained when tender, for barley, farro, wheat berries and wild rice — foolproof, because you test and drain rather than measure. Cooked grains keep 4–5 days in the fridge and freeze well, and like rice they should be cooled quickly (XII.9). Rinse quinoa in a fine sieve until the water no longer foams.

At the stove

Cook pearl barley pasta-style and quinoa by absorption. Time each from the boil and note how much water the quinoa needed.

Quinoa was a staple of the Andes for thousands of years and the Inca called it chisaya mama, the mother grain; the United Nations declared 2013 the International Year of Quinoa, and its sudden global demand raised prices for Andean farmers.

Terms

Pseudocereal
A non-grass seed cooked like a grain: quinoa, buckwheat, amaranth.
Pearled
Polished to remove some or all of the bran.
Saponins
Bitter, soapy compounds on quinoa's seed coat.
Groats
Whole hulled grains, bran intact.
Whole grains cook like rice, but their time is set by bran and size: 5 minutes for rolled oats to an hour for wheat berries. Soak the slow ones; cook barley and farro pasta-style; rinse quinoa.

Sources

  1. A teaching value chosen for the course: the right order of magnitude and shape, not a measurement of a particular food.
  2. H. McGee, On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen, 2nd ed., Scribner, 2004.