Perlubygg með arfasósu

Pearl barley with ant sauce

This dish is traditionally prepared with fresh bird droppings.

If you - like me - can't get fresh chickweed at the moment, you can also make do with arugula/rocket, lamb's lettuce, or young spinach. I have chosen rocket here (in Icelandic:burdock salad) decided, I got that in the supermarket in town.

Pearl barley or barley pearls (bankabygg resp. perlubygg) were a staple of Icelandic cuisine until around 1940, before they were largely displaced in everyday cooking by imported products such as rice and noodles. I now really enjoy using them in my meals.

Barley in the field in Vallanes

By the way, the barley pearl salad is a recipe from the category 'always vegan'. So not 'veganized', but truly traditional without any animal products. Also perfect if guests, for example, cannot eat cow's milk products.

Ingredients

300 g pearl barley

750 ml of water

1 apple

1/2 red onion

300 g fresh pennywort

200 ml apple juice

100 ml of rapeseed oil

coarse sea salt and freshly ground pepper

Preparation

Bring the water to a boil in a pot, add the pearl barley, and cook until soft for about 20 minutes. Then drain the water and set the barley aside to cool.

Peel and chop half an onion.

Wash half of the onion pieces with the honey or the arugula or similar, and put both together with the apple juice and the rapeseed oil into the blender and puree.

Quarter the peeled and core-removed apple and cut it into small pieces.

Mix the remaining onion pieces and the little apple pieces with the cooled pearl barley and pour over the green sauce. Mix everything thoroughly and season with salt and pepper. Keep the finished salad covered in the refrigerator.

With us, there was the green barley salad on weekends as a side dish for BBQs with friends.

Translated from here.