I have been searching for this special and very elusive black barley for about 8 years! My friend Reni told me she found it at Rainbow Market in the Bay area, but my own search always came up short.
I found out that this beautiful grain is originally from Ethiopia, but is rare in the US because it has a low yield. The site that I looked at says, "A farmer in Montana decided to take a risk. This is actually the only grain that can go from field to table without being processed because the gloom or bran layer stays attached to the kernel and is edible." They recommend combining it with another grain because it's chewy, and I agree. The next time around maybe I'll do 25% black barley with 75% regular barley. It gets much plumper after it's cooked.
I used it as the main ingredient of my grain salad for dinner. In this dish, several things are grown locally, such as the cucumbers, green onions, and my own home grown parsley and dill.
The other ingredient that I haven't used yet, but plan to sometime soon, is Black Beluga Lentils. It looks like caviar! This should be fun to experiment with. Look for that blog to appear at some point in the near future.
1 comment:
It reminds me of wild rice colors. Your salad looks delicious. Very cool barley!
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