Barley risotto with feta cheese

I don'tknow why the light turned so yellow on this one...

Shouldn't this be called barleyotto? or orzotto? Ok, enough with the lame jokes. As implied, this is a barley dish cooked like a risotto but, according to Mssrs Ottolenghi & Tamimi "without the exact precision and meticulous preparation", ie a recipe right up my alley. Indeed, I don't do risotto, because it's not really in my tradition (though my Tessin-raised grandma would make me an awesome saffron risotto when I was little) and because, let's face it, it's a bit of  a pain.
So here goes:
butter
oil
200 grs pearl barley
700 ml vegetable stock (I made this from a stock cube. Sue me)
100 grs feta cheese
cumin seeds
oregano
thyme
canned tomatoes
one onion
 1 tbsp salt

In a large pan, warm up the oil, butter and onion. Add the pre-rinsed barley, the stock, thyme, oregano, salt and chopped tomatoes. Bring to a boil, then leave to simmer for about 45 mins, stirring frequently so that the barley doesn't stick to the pan, and adding water if necessary. The water should be absorbed by the end. In the meantime, marinade the feta cheese with oil, oregano and cumin seeds. Add said feta to barley.

This dish was more straightforward than I thought it would be. It needs watching, but not manically so, and I suspect rice has a bigger tendency to stick than barley. It's warm and filling. The slight issue I had is that it's a bit mealy. Possibly this is because I didn't add the chili flakes and other stuff which would spice it up, but then I don't think it would gain in being outright spicy, at least for my personal taste. It's not 100% hassle free, since it does require some time and effort, but definitely a dish to add to a repertoire, especially in winter.

In which courgette hamburgers go pear-shaped, or rather shapeless

                                          This tasted better than it looked...

I fail  meatballs, it seems.I remember once I attempted to make some with bread crumbs and ground beef, and the result wasn't pretty. I wanted to try this recipe because I often eat chicken burgers (as in, those you buy already made) and I liked the courgette combination. But something didn't quite go well in the meatball-making process, as is obvious from the photo.  Possibly the usual reducing-proportion issue? Or that I was in a hurry and was running around the kitchen like those cuisine programmes where people have to make a 3-course meal in 30 seconds, or something? Anyway, here goes:

- This recipe goes with a sauce which, as can be easily inferred, shows that this is a Jerusalem cookbook and not a Jewish one, and I understand that Arabs often use dairy-based sauces for meat:

Mix in a small bowl 100 grs sour cream, 1 cup Greek yogurt (but I used some nice one from the Swiss countryside), a teaspoon of crushed garlic, lemon juice, salt pepper. You're also supposed to put sumac in it. Now, Yotam and Samimi, I thought I'd gotten by now all the spices I needed, what the heck is sumac? Needless to say, I went sans sumac. Put in the fridge.

For the meatballs, mix in a large bowl the minced turkey, 2 teaspoons crushed garlic, cumin, one egg, salt, crushed mint, pepper, 3 roughly grated mini-courgettes. Mix and make into meatballs. Here, I had the impression there wasn't enough meat in proportion to the other ingredients. Maybe the mistake was that, after putting 2 mini courgettes, I went "There's no such thing as too much courgette! Plus it's green and colourful!" thus producing an excess of courgettitude.

Afterwards, you're supposed to fry the meatballs in heated sunflower oil. I never pre-heat oil, I think it's healthier and reduces the risk of hot oil going all over the place...But this is where my already poor-looking meatballs began to undo themselves. I was tempted to transform the whole thing in a kind of chili, but still went through the rest of the recipe, putting the meatballs in the oven at 200 C for 7 minutes. This is when they lost all semblance of meatballness. However, it actually tasted good! The sauce was nice too, but then I'm a sucker for anything containing sour cream. And I wouldn't advice making this dish for a romantic dinner, since it's a bit garlic-heavy. Either that, or remove the garlic.

So there's definitely room for improvement in this recipe, as in, I basically need to improve my meatball-making skills. Because right now, I couldn't have really brought the dish to a picnic or as lunch to work, as Mssrs Ottolenghi&Tamimi suggest (they say it's "portable").

Muhallabieh

Being busy has kept me away from cooking experiments, but I've not given up, the November hyatus is over! Muhallabieh, apparently an Arab classic, is a milk pudding. I haven't really altered the book's recipe, except for the garnishings:
50 grs cornflour
500 ml milk
200 ml water
80 grs sugar
Whisk the cornflour with 100 mls of the milk until they make a smooth paste. Pour the remaining milk, along with the water ans sugar, into a medium saucepan and heat gently until the sugar dissolves. When the milk mixture begins to release steam, whisk in the cornflour paste. Stir in until it becomes like a thick custard. Pour in individual cups, cover with cling film so that a skin doesn't form, and place in the fridge for three hours. Decorate with pistachioes (that mine were Iranian pistachioes amuses me immensely)

Pretty basic, isn't it? Problem was, the recipe includes a syrup to pour over the puddings, and the syrup includes bay leaves...And I wasn't able to find bay leaves anywhere, I'm not even sure what they are, to be honest. Hence, I gave up on the syrup, which wasn't a good idea, since without it the pudding is ok but, well, a bit mealy. Since I haven't eaten all of my puddings, I'm going to try adding some melted chocolate, which might not be the authentic Jerusalem way to do things, but which I feel might be an improvement.