Ingredients
- 300g pearl barley
- 300-400ml coconut milk
- 2 limes, juice only
- 4 tablespoons runny honey
- 100g red quinoa or 100g roughly chopped nuts or toasted sunflower seeds
- 2-3 oranges
- 3 apples or pears, or a mix
- 2-4 sprigs fresh mint leaves
- 1 punnet fresh blueberries
Directions
1 First, cook the pearl barley by covering with two and a half times the volume of water and bring to a gentle simmer in a pan over a medium heat. Stir occasionally and cook for approximately 40 minutes, until the pearl barley is nice and tender whilst retaining a bouncy texture (just beyond al dente).
2 Once cooked, strain and rinse under cold water. Shake really well to remove excess water. Place in a bowl and add about three-quarters of the coconut milk (keeping the rest in a bowl in the fridge), juice of one lime and 2 tablespoons of runny honey. Stir well, cover and leave covered in fridge for two to three hours or overnight.
3 Toast the quinoa by placing a dry clean frying pan over a medium heat until good and hot, throw the quinoa into the pan and shake over the heat for one to two minutes until the quinoa is toasted (do the same if using the nuts or seeds instead), removing the ingredients to a bowl immediately afterwards so it doesn’t over-toast.
4 Peel the oranges, removing as much of the pith as possible and cut into 1cm slices.
5 Core the apples and/or pears and cut into bite-size wedges.
6 In a large bowl, toss the orange and apple/ pears in 2 tablespoons of honey and the juice of half a lime.
7 Take out the pearl barley ‘porridge’ and taste – adding more coconut milk, lime or honey to taste – it should have a similar consistency to
rice pudding.
8 To present, place slices of the orange and the apple/pear wedges on individual plates/bowls. Build up, tearing the fresh mint leaves over each layer. Place a big spoon of the pearl barley and coconut ‘porridge’ on top of each portion, together with a good sprinkling of the fresh blueberries (no one will blame you for being generous), some more of the mint and then a good sprinkle of the toasted red quinoa (or nuts or seeds, or all of these).
9 Finish with a final drizzle of honey. In terms of balance, you want a good bit more fruit than porridge on the plate.
Recipe courtesy of Brother Hubbard.
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Tips
Experiment and add a different mixture of fruits or whatever you may have to hand. The ‘porridge’ here can be made in a larger quantity to hold in the fridge for three days or so.
