The barley risotto with mushrooms is cooked like a traditional risotto. It’s a tasty, nutritious vegetarian main dish, suitable for both lunch and dinner. Barley is a cereal with numerous health benefits that can be enriched, personalized, and cooked in various ways. You can prepare soups, stews, to be enjoyed hot or cold, fragrant, inviting, and flavorful; or a barley risotto like in this case. It can be considered a very simple single-course meal with very few added fats. The barley risotto with mushrooms can be accompanied, if desired, by garlic and chili pepper croutons.
- Difficulty: Very easy
- Cost: Cheap
- Preparation time: 20 Minutes
- Portions: 4
- Cooking methods: Stovetop
- Cuisine: Italian
- Seasonality: All seasons
Ingredients
- 1.5 cups pearled barley
- water (6 cups)
- to taste fine salt
- to taste extra virgin olive oil
- 1.1 lbs mushrooms
- 1 carrot
- 1 stalk celery
- 1/2 onion
- 2 tbsps dry white wine
- to taste chopped parsley
- 1 clove garlic
Preparation
Clean the carrot, onion, and celery and make a vegetable broth with 6 cups of water. When the broth comes to a boil, let it cook for another 10 minutes and then turn off the heat.
While the broth is cooking, clean the mushrooms and slice them not too thinly. Place them in a non-stick pan, cover, and let them lose some of their moisture over high heat, without adding water or fats. After this step, sauté a garlic clove in a large saucepan with a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil over medium heat.
When the garlic is well browned, add the mushrooms, stir, and let them also brown for about a minute. Then, remove the garlic, add the barley, stir, and let it absorb flavors for a minute, then pour in the wine and let the alcohol evaporate.
Only now can we add all the broth (without the vegetables) which must be more than boiling.
Stir, cover, and let it cook over low heat for about 30 minutes, stirring occasionally, or until the broth is completely absorbed and the barley is well cooked. At this point, it’s not necessary to stir in butter like in a traditional risotto since our barley risotto will already be creamy, but we can still use creamy cheese or a knob of butter. Let the barley risotto with mushrooms rest for a few minutes before serving it with a sprinkle of freshly chopped parsley.
