It’s normal, I think, to have certain very personal views on matters of food and drink. I find it difficult to accept that beer served in little bottles contains any alcohol. I am not sure there is such a thing as a truly delicious brownie. Parsley is the Bill Hader of herbs: I wish it was in everything.
Among my various food opinions (some reasonable, others frankly actionable) is the firm belief that brightly-coloured foods are good for you. I’m not talking here about neon sweets (though, yes, at the cinema, watching a lovely film featuring Bill Hader), but about things like green spinach and purple beetroot.
Colour-wise, this is probably the spookiest thing I know how to make. It comes out of the pan a kind of hot, lurid crimson. It’s like a beetroot risotto, but made with pearl barley instead of rice – but, as with risotto, if you have any leftover you can turn it into arancini the next day. The amounts given here will feed four hungry people, likely with seconds and some left over for arancini or just for lunch tomorrow. If you’re not normally a fan of beetroot I hope you’ll give this a go – it’s hearty and rich with none of the earthiness people complain about. Here’s what I do.
First, boil the kettle: you’ll need it in a few minutes.
Now: in a large pan (I use the kind of oval Le Creuset pot that Americans hilariously refer to as a Dutch oven; whatever you boil your pasta in should also be fine), sweat a diced large onion in olive oil, adding a few cloves of sliced garlic and the picked leaves of a few sprigs of thyme when the onion has softened. Season as you go: some salt and pepper at this point is important. If I have a bunch of parsley knocking around, I’ll usually slice the stalks and add them here; equally, you could use a diced rib of celery or two, or the stalks from a bunch of curly kale or cavolo nero – these are delicious and I don’t know why so many recipes tell you to throw them away!
While the base softens and gets fragrant, peel and dice a couple of beetroot (say two or three large ones or four small, though if you like the stuff you can add even more) and add to the pot. Stir and give the beetroot a couple of minutes to sizzle with everything else, though make sure it doesn’t catch. Season again.
Now that the base of the dish is ready, add up to 500g of pearl barley. Stir it through and let the barley toast for a minute or two. That done, add a glass of white wine (white vermouth, white port, or sherry will work here too) and turn up the heat to medium-high. Let most of that liquid sizzle away. When it’s getting there, toss in one of those vegetable stock gels you can buy in the supermarket. Stir. It will melt and coat your barley.
Now grab that kettle of boiled water and pour a generous sploosh (let’s say half a pint) into the pot. If you have a parmesan rind or two, add them now.
As with a risotto, your job now is to stir while the water bubbles away, and whenever it’s nearly gone, to add some more until your barley is tender but with a little bite left. When you’ve reached that stage, turn off the heat. Toss in a generous slice of butter, a large handful of freshly chopped parsley, a similarly effusive handful of grated parmesan, and the juice of half a lemon. Stir and put the lid back on for five minutes. Warm the bowls, pour the wine.
After the five minutes is up, check the barley for taste and texture. You can loosen it out with a little more boiling water if you like (sometimes I’ll make this more of a barley soup consistency, while other times I’ll aim for more of a risotto-y ooze). It might need a little salt or the other half of that lemon. Remove the parmesan rind(s) if you’ve used them. Dish it up with more fresh parsley and some parmesan or – the dream – ricotta salata.
(I sometimes add some cooked, blanched, and chopped spinach to this at the end: all you need to do is put it in a colander, pour over a kettle of boiling water and let it wilt, then refresh it under a cold tap before squeezing out as much liquid as you can. This will leave you with a perfect shiny green ball which you can chop and then stir through the barley right at the end.)
If you have leftovers, fridge them overnight and the next day you can roll them into loose balls which you dip in flour, egg, and then breadcrumbs before deep-frying and serving hot. These are not proper arancini but they are pink on the inside and they’re marvellous. I like to split one open and give it a squeeze of lemon juice and a tiny sprinkle of salt.
Resolutions. There was an election in the UK last month and it didn’t go well. You probably already know that food charities are going to need money, if you can spare it. The Trussell Trust run foodbanks and you can donate to them here. If you live in Leeds or you’re here visiting, drop by Rainbow Junktion in Hyde Park for a pay-as-you-feel lunch made from food that would otherwise go to landfill: any cash you can drop in the donations box goes a long old way.
In my defence. The stock-gel-at-the-start-and-additions-of-boiling-water method is what I do with most of the risotto I make. It is wildly inauthentic and likely to get me banned from Italy and I apologise. But it’s also super handy and we’re busy people.