Delicious cooked with brown basmati rice. I bet it would also work really well in a salad or side dish made with black or red quinoa (or a plain quinoa, for that matter). ;o)
I never heard of black barley so I just looked it up. It is called "hull-less" but from what I read it is very different - chewier - than the pearled or hulled barley we commonly find in soups, etc. So I would guess you could use it the way you would cooked farro or wheat berries or other chewy while grain. I would not use it in a barley risotto (which was my initial thought). To answer your question about eating it on its own, I think it would be very bland. You could make a pilaf by cooking it in beef, chicken or vegetable stock, then adding sautéed onions and anything else yummy like bacon, sautéed mushrooms (or other vegetables), nuts, etc. adding a less chewy grain like rice would probably help. Also I saw this webpage with recipes for black barley: http://www.stahlbush.com/products/black-barley/
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