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Barley Water (the Queen’s Recipe)

Jeremy Lee is a chef who likes to be called a cook. He grew up with good food in his mother’s kitchen and is now dedicated to making it for others. Since meeting him and eating at his restaurant, the Blueprint Café in London, I have been awed by his knowledge, and love his simple approach to good ingredients. He is one of those chefs who resist the temptation to add another ingredient to a dish, and he makes a mustardy salad dressing that will activate your tear ducts at 20 paces. The table and cooking of his mother, Eileen Lee, must have rubbed off; you will always find bottled fruit and pickles lined up on shelves in his restaurant and they are not there for décor. Eileen died suddenly in 2006 but, during a conversation that strayed inexplicably to barley (my, how you’d enjoy my company), Jeremy told me about the barley water she would make for her ‘little clucks’, keeping it in a glass jug in the fridge. ‘The recipe, which was called the Queen’s barley water, was pulled from a newspaper,’ he wrote when he sent me the recipe. ‘It was so refreshing, nourishing and also very good for your skin.’ Making it yields a nice little by-catch – a dish of barley to dress with olive oil, shallots and herbs.

225g/8oz approx. pearl barley

2.5 litres/4 pints water

6 oranges

2 lemons

Demerara sugar to taste

Wash the barley well. Tip it into a pot and cover with the water, then bring to the boil. Lower the heat to a gentle simmer and cook gently for up to an hour, until the barley is tender. Strain the barley (reserve it for another dish) and leave the liquid to cool. Stir in the grated zest of 3 oranges and 1 lemon, then the juice of all the fruits. Add sugar to taste; it should not be too sweet. Pour into a jug and keep in the fridge, drinking within a day or two.

	Kitchen note
Add the cooked barley, which will be quite soft, to a broth with vegetables, or dress it with olive oil, finely sliced shallot, plenty of chopped parsley (as much as it will take before becoming more parsley than barley) and lemon juice. Serve with Flatbreads or grilled or barbecued fish or meat.