№ 27Pērļu grūpes ar vīnu

Pearl barley in wine with currants Serves 4–6 · 1½ hours · Adapted from the 1796 recipe; not yet tested.

The book gives ½ mārciņa of pearl barley, 1 kortelis of wine and 2 egg yolks, which converts to about 210 g, 320 ml and 2.

Ingredients

• 200 g pearl barley
• 1.5 l water
• 320 ml white wine
• Peel of ½ lemon, finely chopped
• ½ tsp ground cinnamon
• ¼ tsp ground cardamom, or the seeds of 4 pods, crushed
• 60–80 g sugar, to taste
• 15 g butter
• A pinch of salt
• 50 g currants, rinsed
• 2 egg yolks
• To serve: ground cinnamon

Method

1. Rinse the barley in a sieve. Simmer it in the water, partly covered, for 45–50 minutes, stirring now and then, until the grains are soft and the liquid has thickened. 2. Add the wine, lemon peel, cinnamon, cardamom, sugar, butter and salt, and bring back to a simmer. 3. Add the currants and simmer gently for 30 minutes more, stirring often so nothing sticks. Add a splash of hot water if it gets too thick; it should be thick but still spoonable. 4. Take the pan off the heat. Whisk the egg yolks in a bowl, whisk in a ladle of the hot soup, then stir it all back into the pan. Stir over low heat for 1–2 minutes without letting it boil. 5. Serve sprinkled with cinnamon.

Notes

• What the book says vs. what we added: the amounts of barley, wine and yolks are the book's, as are the spices, sugar, butter and salt, the currants added half an hour before serving, and the yolks stirred in at the end. The water, sugar and spice amounts, the times and warming the yolks are ours. The book says only "wine"; white is our choice, and red would give a darker soup.
• Texture: the book cooks the barley until "thickish", so this sits somewhere between a soup and a sweet porridge.
• Wine: 30 minutes' simmering drives off much of the alcohol, but not all.