How to Cook Grains

Learn how to cook grains that were grown in your garden and process them for your homemade baked goods.

How to Cook Grains

1. All the grains grown in the garden (wheat, corn, grain sorghum,
buckwheat, oats, triticale or rye or barley,
alfalfa and cane sorghum) except soybeans may be
cooked by the thermos method. Bring required amounts of
grain and water to a boil, pour into a wide-mouthed
thermos, close, and leave for 8 to 12 hours.

Another method for cooking grains is the “pilaf” method.
This involves sauteing the grain — usually
with minced onion — in oil and then adding
stock or water (approximately twice as much liquid as
grain) and cooking it, covered, over medium-low heat until
the liquid is absorbed and the grain is tender. The time is
about the same as above. Brown rice, barley, millet, and
wild rice are especially good cooked this way. Buckwheat is
traditionally cooked in this way, but a raw egg is stirred
into the dry grains before adding the stock or water. This
replaces the need for sauteing the buckwheat in oil, and is
done to keep the grains separate throughout the cooking.
The required amount of water is two cups for the “egg”
method of cooking buckwheat, and five cups when cooking it
to be eaten as a cereal.

The hard grains such as wheat, rye, and triticale, may be
brought to a boil in the required amount of water, boiled
for 10 minutes, then left to soak for 8 — 12
hours in this same water. After the long soaking, they may
be cooked for 15 — 20 minutes and will be
tender enough to eat. This is one way to shorten the
cooking time.

The pressure-cooker method offers the advantages of cutting
the cooking time in the above chart in half. In general,
use twice as much water as grain when cooking in the
pressure cooker, although more water — four times the amount
of grain — is needed for the harder grains,
such as rye, triticale, and wheat.