Salads with farro, or pearl barley*, make a super store-cupboard meal – this type of grain cooks in just 15 minutes with no pre-soaking, giving you enough time to prepare the other ingredients so that supper can be on the table in less than half-an-hour. It’s lovely piping hot as a lighter alternative to risotto, but also handles latecomers and/or disorganized cooks with aplomb as it’ll only get better if left sitting around to become tepid. If you’re as much as a tupperware fiend as I am, it would be great the next day when the flavours have married together, making a truly elegant lunchbox or picnic addition.
I do lots of variations of this salad, really depending on which of the vegetables lurking in the fridge are threatening to go all feak and weeble on me. Here I used an orange cauliflower, the first one I’ve ever seen let alone eaten. A quick web search reveals that, despite the Cheetos glow, it was developed from a natural (phew) mutation found in a field in Canada and has about twenty-five times the amount of vitamin A than the normal sort, making it ideal for carrot avoiders. The subtle flavours of the cauliflower – orange tastes exactly like the white sort – and barley get enhanced by the olives and capers, toasted almonds give crunch and necessary greens come from the easy addition of some frozen peas. For preference I would have used fresh snow peas or mange tout here but mine had gone past the lurking stage and were being proactively noxious.
*Nassau ingredients sourcing: Pearl barley can be found in GNC stores – the one in Marathon Mall had it last time I looked. Orange organic cauliflowers appear sporadically at Balduccino’s.
Orange cauliflower, almond and green olive salad
- 150g pearl barley
- 1 head orange cauliflower
- 2 handfuls frozen peas
- 1 small handful whole almonds
- about 10 large green olives
- 2 tablespoons chopped flat leaved parsley
- 1 heaped tablespoon drained capers
- 2 tablespoons olive oil
- 1 tablespoon champagne vinegar
Put a pot of water on for the pearl barley and salt it generously (real Italians use a scary amount of large rock salt crystals when cooking pasta and other grains, literally using a pugno, or fist of salt). Cook the pearl barley for 15 minutes and then drain and set aside.
While this is happening, break the cauliflower up into small bite-size florets and steam together with the frozen peas for about 6 minutes until tender.
Meanwhile make a quick dressing with the chopped parsley, roughly chopped capers, olive oil and vinegar (go easy on the vinegar because most likely the capers and olives will be quite briney even after draining).
Toast the almonds in a dry pan until starting to brown and then chop them too (carefully, they’re hot!).
When the vegetables are cooked put them in your serving bowl and mix in the dressing so it gets absorbed nicely. Add the pearl barley, chopped green olives and finally the almonds. Season – it may need a bit more zing from the vinegar, more salt or (more than likely) more olive oil to bring it all together.
