Barley Cooked like Paella

The toothsome texture of properly cooked barley is fun and appealing, but preparations are frequently bland. We tried cooking it exactly like paella and it came out great, and we even got a good socarrat crust. If fideuà is a thing, why not a barley "paella"?

The finished barley "paella"

We followed the same recipe we've been using recently to work on developing a proper crust at the bottom, the socarrat. It did take all the stock we'd normally use for Bomba rice, 5 Cups, instead of the 3 Cups you'd use to prepare barley the conventional way.

We sauteed the sofrito ingredients (shallots, peppers, tomato, garlic) in the veal fat, removed and sauteed the ham, removed then sauteed the barley a bit just like we'd do for rice.

First addition of veal stock to sautéed ingredients

We wanted an earthy flavor for the cold weather so went with veal fat instead of oil, a veal stock to cook the barley, with ham, roasted red peppers and artichoke hearts.  We added the veal stock at successive times, each time waiting for it to evaporate and build up the crust a bit. We ended up adding maybe a cup of water to finish off the barley, which took about 45 minutes to cook through sufficiently.

Add toppings: roasted peppers, artichoke hearts

The veal stock made it a bit too rich, a bit "sticky" so next time I'd probably use about 3 Cups veal stock and 2 Cups water. The barley came out with a pleasant and playful chew, almost a bounce. All the grains were distinct, like the rice in a good paella. 

Adding some water to finish cooking until toothsome

Pierogi #2: cake, all purpose flour comparison

After complaining that my previous attempt was too chewy, too tough, someone told me that Eastern European flour is softer (less protein) than our US flour. This time, we made two batches: one with just cake flour, the other with half cake, half all purpose. Both used butter, egg, and sour cream in the dough -- all will make for more tender dough. We stuffed them with mushroom/onion duxelles that we finely chopped in a food processor and cooked down.

We cooked all the pierogi identically but couldn't really tell the difference in dough texture, but I think they were more tender than the all-AP flour we did previously.

Served with sautéed onions and crunchy breadcrumbs

The recipe came from King Arthur Flour, which we use all the time; both our AP and Cake flours were KA. I like their recipe because it uses metric, which makes measuring fast.

241g King Arthur Cake Flour (for other batch, 120g Cake + 120g All-Purpose)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 large egg
113g sour cream
57g butter, melted

Combine all ingredients in food processor and pulse until it comes together.
Wrap in cling film and let rest 10 hours or so.

Roll out on a floured counter but don't flour the top or it makes it hard to seal the dough, so I used cling film on top so the rolling pin doesn't stick.

Note my super-clever rolling pin with O-Rings to give me consistent thickness

Cut out circles, and place in little pierogi / ravioli thing (white device in top right of photo), fill, and close to seal; you can fold by hand then crimp with a fork but we had the filler thing, it was cheap. We found the dough contracted a bit after cutting, making the rounds a bit small for the form; the contraction surprised us as the dough had rested a long time.

Simmer in salted water until the dough is tender and cooked; don't boil hard because it may break the soft dough.

Left is cake+AP, right is cake-only

We didn't fry these this time because we wanted to evaluate the dough alone;
next time, we will sauté in butter.
Serve with sautéed onions, and untraditional but tasty fried and seasoned breadcrumbs.

We froze the extras, and a week later, thawed them out and fried in a little butter. They were really quite good this way, much better than the floppy soft texture of the only-boiled. The skin had a slight crust and the dough was tender. This treatment redeemed the pierogi, and we'll definitely do them again this way -- boil then fry.

Pierogi lightly fried in butter, with fried shallots. Much better.