On this very rainy and grey tuesday, I decided to brighten up my day with this delicious dish.
I took it out of his book Jerusalem which he wrote with Sami Tamimi. As always they get it right with their flavors.

Their book "Jerusalem" is a pleasure to read, because of the detailed recipes, but also because of the description of each dish and off course because of the images. You really get the feeling knowing Jerusalem a little bit more. 

Let's jump right into it!

90 ml olive oil

2 small celery stalks, cut into 5mm dice

2 small shallots (I used onions), cut into 5mm dice

4 garlic gloves

4 thyme sprigs

1/2 tsp smoked paprika

1 bay leaf

4 stripes of lemon rind 

4 tsp chilli flakes

400 g tin chopped tomatoes

700 ml vegetable stock

300 ml passata

300 gr feta, broken roughly

1 tbsp oregano

Salt

First rinse the pearl barley under cold water and leave to drain.


Melt the butter and two tbs of the olive oil in a pan.


Cook the onion, celery and garlic in that same pan.


Once softened add in the barley, thyme, paprika, bay leaf, lemon, chilli flakes, tomatoes, stock, passata and salt.




Stir it all together.


Bring it to a boil. Once it has boiled reduce the heat and let it cook for about 45 minutes.


Make sure to stir once in a while, so that the barley doesn't catch to the bottom of the pan.


While your barley is cooking away, make your marinated feta. The original recipe asks for caraway seeds. I didn't had caraway seeds on hand, so I just left it out of the recipe. Combine the feta pieces with dried oregano and the remaining olive oil.
And you should be left with this:




When your barley is cooked throw. You can serve this utterly comforting food.


Top the risotto with some marinated feta.



You're good to go!