Barley Milk Using a Pressure Cooker

My mom only has one functioning kidney right now, and even that kidney has greatly reduced functionality. While I am grateful that she is still eating well and has been generally healthy for her age, I also needed to make sure her diet is kind to her precious remaining kidney. Barley milk does wonders for this purpose, alkalizing our urine to prevent urinary tract infections (UTI), promoting urination to help flush our kidneys of harmful toxins, and packing a lot of antioxidants to help reduce inflammation. Thus, I’ve included barley milk into my weekly food prep rotation.

I’ve never made barley milk before this, so I scoured in Internet for ideas. I used a recipe by Lily Lai as a starting point, then simplified it into a hands-off recipe using my electric pressure cooker. My version is unsweetened, but you can always add honey or lemon or sugar to your liking.

The barley I use is regular pearl barley. Here in KL they already come in handy 100-gram packets, so I just use one packet for every batch I make.

I hear you can also use the bigger Job’s Tears or Chinese pearl barley, but I’ve never used it myself. No change in recipe required when using this type of barley.

Wash the barley thoroughly, and drain the water.

In your pressure cooker pot, add the barley and water.

Add the pandan leaves. You can tear the ends of the knot into smaller strips to get more of the essence out of the leaves.

Close and lock the pressure cooker lid. Turn the vent to Seal and cook the barley at high pressure setting, 20 minutes.

When the timer is up, wait for the pressure to fully release, and remove the lid. Remove and discard the pandan leaves.

Blend the barley together with its cooking liquid in batches, until very fine. Keep refrigerated, and consume within 3 days.