It is believed that pearl barley, or pearl barley porridge , is exclusively army food. Barley is made from barley grain and contains a huge amount of vitamins and nutrients needed by the human body. In addition, we should not forget that pearl barley was one of the favorite in Russia, moreover, according to historians, it was the favorite dish of Peter 1. Contempt for pearl barley is primarily due to the inability to cook it tasty due to lack of time or lack of knowledge and patience.
A huge amount of delicious dishes can be prepared from pearl barley, fragrant soups are cooked from it, original salads are made, it is prepared as side dishes or boiled in milk. Barley with meat is one of the most delicious dishes of healthy cereal called barley. And the main thing at the same time is to remember: in order to make a barley dish delicious, you need to be patient. Due to the presence of a huge amount of vitamin B and various trace elements, barley with meat is not only tasty, but also very healthy food.
First of all, do not forget to wash the grain well, in the old Russian recipes it is recommended to wash any cereal for porridge in seven waters. After that, you should definitely soak the grain for ten to twelve hours, in the proportion of one liter of water per glass of barley, only in this case the barley with meat will turn out to be tasty and crumbly.
The very preparation of barley with meat differs from other similar dishes (from the more popular cereals) only in cooking time. In a frying pan, you need to fry the meat until golden brown with vegetables or mushrooms, add spices to taste, transfer to a cauldron and mix with pearl barley. After that, fill with water, wait until the water boils and put to simmer for an hour in the oven or leave to cook on the stove.
As a festive portioned dish, pearl barley with meat in pots will serve as a decoration for any table. It is prepared in the same way, but in this case, it would be better not to mix the ingredients, but spread them in layers in a pot: fried meat, vegetables and barley. If the pots are rather big, you can make several layers, which then need to be poured with hot water, preventing the layers from mixing. So that the water does not boil away, do not fill the pot to the top. Barley with meat in pots is cooked for a little over an hour in an oven heated to 200 ° C. After an hour, you need to check if there is enough water in the pots, if necessary, add so that the porridge does not turn out to be dry. It should be remembered that pearl barley is highly boiled, so it is recommended to fill the pot two-thirds of its volume.
Today, in order to save time for cooking tasty and healthy food, multicookers are often used. Barley with meat in a slow cooker turns out to be friable and very beautiful in appearance. It is with this preparation that pearl barley is most consistent with its name, which it received from the word "pearl". Since the slow cooker can be called conditionally “smart pot”, cooking dishes in it, including pearl barley, is not difficult. Pre-meat and vegetables are fried in sunflower oil in the “baking” mode, and then soaked pearl barley is added , spices are poured to taste and the “pilaf” mode is set. The advantage of this preparation is that barley with meat in a slow cooker is much easier to prepare than in an oven or on a stove.
In addition to meat varieties of pearl barley porridge, porridge in milk with the addition of sugar is no less tasty. As a lean dish, barley porridge can be consumed while observing Great Lent - it turns out delicious and satisfying.
One more piece of advice: barley should be eaten immediately after cooking, because after heating it loses its taste and becomes the most unloved by many soldier’s porridge.
Here it is, pearl barley, with or without meat, in pots, in a cauldron or in a slow cooker, but undoubtedly useful and fully consistent with its name - with proper preparation, it can become a real pearl on any table.