This risotto-style barley is cooked in stock with onions, red peppers, mushrooms, and preserved lemon, has a fantastic texture and wonderful flavour! Use any summer squash: patty pan, courgette, marrow…
Preserved lemon
Preserved lemons are one of those ingredients that a lot of chefs say they would never do without. They have a unique flavour of salty, citrus tang. If you find them hard to get hold of in your local supermarket, you can get them online or make them yourself (although they take about 3 weeks before they are ready to eat). Stir the preserved lemon into the barley after it is cooked since boiling them can lead to a loss of aromatics and flavour.
The squash
Use any summer squash as long as they are relatively large and create a good sized cavity once the seeds are scrapped out. For this recipe, I used one large patty pan squash and half a spaghetti squash.
Barley stuffed squash
Ingredients
- 200 g barley
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1 onion finely chopped
- 2 garlic cloves
- 1 red pepper
- 5 mushrooms
- 200 ml white wine
- 500 ml stock
- 1 preserved lemon
- 1 bunch parsley
- 1 – 2 large squash
Instructions
- Finely chop the onion. Heat the olive oil in a saucepan and gentle cook the onion for 8 minutes. Crush the garlic and stir it in to the onion and cook for a further two minutes.2 tbsp olive oil, 1 onion, 2 garlic cloves
- Dice the red pepper and mushrooms. Stir them into the onion and garlic and cook for five minutes until soft.1 red pepper, 5 mushrooms
- Stir the barley into the onions, peppers and mushrooms, making sure that each grain is coated in oil/juices. Then pour in the white wine and stir until it is all absorbed.200 ml white wine
- Pour in the sock and cover with a lid. Bring a simmer and let it cook for 30 minutes until the barley is soft. You should be left with a risotto-like texture. Don't worry if there is a little too much liquid in it – more liquid will be absorbed/evaporated in the oven when cooked in the squash.500 ml stock
- Add this point stir in the finely chopped preserved lemon and chopped parsley.1 preserved lemon, 1 bunch parsley
- Preheat the oven to 180 degrees C, or 160 degrees C in a fan oven.
- Cut the squash and scoop out the seeds. Fill the seed cavity with the barley mixture and place in the oven for 40 minutes.1 – 2 large squash
