Into the Woods

Good-bye garden stir fry with fried barley

For the longest time, I had been planning to see if fried barley can compete with fried rice. Yes it can.

The chewy texture of barley makes great fried rice. The grains are sturdy and are not at risk of turning to mush when thrown around in the wok. The grains love a thin coating of sauce, but they don’t drink it up the way rice does. You’ll eat less, because barley takes longer to chew.

The stir fry above contains lots of green peppers and green tomatoes given to me by a neighbor. They had picked the last remaining parts of their garden (which was a lot) before the first freeze. Green tomatoes are brilliant in a stir fry or curry.