Showing posts with label barley. Show all posts
Showing posts with label barley. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

With the exception of slow-cooked meats, it’s very rare that the meat is the main star of our everyday meals. If I’m BBQing or grilling meat, I tend to leave it plain and cook it well, then make salads and sides that shine. Or make a kick-arse sauce to go on it. That tends to be the same when you eat out as well. It’s *just* a steak (albeit a good quality one) until they add the mushroom sauce or pepper sauce or red wine jus. Partly at home, it’s a cleaning issue. And partly a timing issue. I rarely think ahead enough to marinade the meat before I cook it. But the acid and booze in this orange juice marinade only needs a small amount of time to make a big impact on the chicken. So you can marinade the meat for half an hour while you prep the veges and get the barley cooking. You then use the same marinading liquid to braise some kale and cabbage and bam! Flavourful dinner with zero wastage. Cook the chicken over a medium-high heat to get a nice crispy brown outer layer and still have the centre juicy.

The barley with greens still is kinda the star here, with it’s tart/sweet pops of cranberries, briny capers, crunchy cashews and sweetly braised greens – but the chicken holds it’s own without any further accompaniment if you served just the chicken. And that is a rarity in my household!

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley


Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Marinade

Zest and juice from one orange
Thumb tip size piece of fresh ginger, finely grated
30mL dark rum
1 chipotle in adobo, minced
3 tbsp olive oil

3 chicken thighs
¾ cup barley
1 ¼ cups water
¾ tsp vegetable stock powder (or salt)
Olive oil
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 stalks celery, diced
½ bunch kale, ribs removed and shredded
¼ cabbage, shredded
2 tbsp dried cranberries
1 tbsp capers
¼ cup roasted cashews
2 tbsp minced fresh parsley

Mix all of the marinade ingredients in a glass or other non-reactive bowl add the chicken thighs, toss to coat. Cover with plastic wrap and leave to marinade for 30 minutes. Drain the chicken, reserving the marinade.

In a medium size pot, mix together the vegetable stock powder or salt. Add the barley. Cover, bring to the boil, then reduce to a simmer. Cook until the barley is tender, but still retains it’s shape and a slight ‘chew’ – around 25 minutes.

While the barley is cooking, heat a splash of olive oil in a frypan over medium heat. Add the onion and cook 10 minutes until softened and golden. Add the garlic and celery and cook a further 5 minutes or until the celery has softened. Add the kale and cabbage, stir it through to coat in the onion mixture, add the marinade and braise for 10-15 minutes until the kale and cabbage is wilted and cooked through.

Heat a second pan or a BBQ grill to high and add the chicken pieces. Cook for 5 minutes until nicely brown on the outside and half cooked through, then turn and cook on the other side for 3-5 minutes until cooked through and brown on the other.

Stir the cooked barley through the braised greens, take off the heat and stir through the cranberries, capers, cashews and parsley.

Plate up the barley, then place a grilled chicken piece on top

Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley
Marinaded to Perfection - Orange Chipotle Chicken with Braised Greens and Barley

Sunday, May 11, 2014

Work Lunches - Smokey Mango Barley Salad


Not working in the CBD means my food options are extremely limited unless I take a drive to buy something. This is both a blessing and a curse. I see some Instagram feeds of the amazing food options in the city and it makes me sad that I have to really put in the effort to go into the city for them. But it means I have a better control over the food I do eat, making me eat healthier and more cheaply. So it has it’s plusses too.

To help me be prepared for the next day’s lunch, whenever I have the oven on for dinner, I’ll roast a few extra veges. Likewise, whenever I cook some grains, I will cook extra to use in lunches. This is one of my favourite take-to-work lunches. The best part of it is the combination of textures. Silky roast eggplant, soft sweet potato, chewy barley and crunchy bean sprouts all smoky and sweet and savoury and delicious. It is best served at room temperature, rather than cold. I made this batch and it lasted in the fridge for 3 days of work lunches.

Smokey Mango, Sweet Potato and Eggplant Barley Salad
1 small sweet potato
1 small eggplant
Generous splash of olive oil
2 tbsp maple syrup
2 tbsp chipotle Tabasco
1 cup cooked pearl barley
Handful basil leaves, torn
1/2 cup mixed bean sprouts (mung bean, adzuki bean, blue pea and lentil is the mix I use)
1/2 mango
1 tablespoon butter
Salt and pepper to season

Dice the sweet potato and eggplant make the sweet potato dice a bit smaller than the eggplant dice so it cooks evenly. Put in a bowl and pour over the olive oil, maple syrup and Chipotle Tabasco sauce. Stir well to coat each piece. Roast for 30-45 minutes until soft. Set aside to cool.

Roughly chop the mango, add a tablespoon of butter and season. Put in a small saucepan and bring to a gentle boil over medium heat and simmer for 5 minutes or until the mango has broken down. Stir well with a fork to help break it down, or puree if you can be bothered.

Combine barley, sweet potato, eggplant and stir through the mango sauce. Gently fold through the bean sprouts and basil leaves. Eat! Or take to work and eat!



Wednesday, May 7, 2014

Clinging on to the Heat - Chili and Barley Stuffed Pork Rolls with Mango Sauce



A few years back now I received the Readers’ Digest Kitchen Garden Cookbook as a Christmas present. It’s quite a fun little cookbook, divided into sections by food plants that grow easily in backyard gardens in Australia. It gives you a rundown of when to plant, what climate it works best on and then a handful of recipes that use that plant. One of my favourite recipes from that book is chilli stuffed pork fillets with raita. This is an adaptation of that recipe, using a mango sauce to provide a sweet contrast to the heat of the chillis, rather than the cooling raita. I also added barley to the stuffing to make it a more filling meal, rather than make a separate side dish.
 
I used two jalapenos and didn’t remove the seeds, as mine weren’t particularly hot peppers. My bush (tree? Shrub?) provides really inconsistent heat in each peppers, so I have to taste them individually before adding to a recipe! Feel free to take the seeds out depending on your own heat tolerance.

I used my own mangoes, but feel free to use frozen mango cheeks, given we're not in the right season anymore.
 


Chili and Barley Stuffed Pork
200g pork fillet
¼ cup cooked pearl barley
2 jalapenos, finely diced
1 cup finely chopped coriander, basil and mint.
Salt and pepper to season.
1 tbsp olive oil.

Mango Sauce
2 mangoes, diced.
2 tbsp dark rum
1 tbsp butter
½ tsp salt
 
In a small saucepan, melt the butter over low heat. Add the mangoes, rum and salt. Mix well, turn the heat up to bring to the boil, then lower and leave to simmer while you make the rest of the meal. Stirring here and there to make sure it’s not sticking to the bottom.
Slice your pork fillet into two, lengthwise, to make two thinner fillets. Cut each of those into 3 pieces, giving 4 rectangles. Season on both sides.
 
In a small bowl, mix the barley, jalapenos, and herbs. Place a tablespoon or so on each piece of pork and roll up tightly. Pin together with a toothpick.
Heat the olive oil in a frypan to medium-high heat. Carefully place  the pork rolls into the frypan and cook for a few minutes on each side, until nicely browned. You’ll need to rotate around 4 times to brown the entire roll.
 
Serve with the mango sauce and a side salad