I had the opportunity to buy some venison or wild game minced meat recently and I knew I had to pair the wild taste with some barley and amaranth. I place the "risotto" in quotation marks because, in the end, there was more meat in the dish than barley, so I think this does not count as a true risotto! But who is keeping score?
My garden produces so many nice leafy greens at the moment, from rocket to Swiss chard and amaranth. We refer to amaranth as "marogo" or wild spinach, and the taste pairs beautifully with the game and barley.
So please follow along as I show you how I make this delicious dish, which started out as a risotto but ended up as basically minced meat with barley in.
Recipe/Ingredient List
For this recipe, I used the following ingredients. This is obviously just what I had on hand, so you can swap and change it as you see fit. These ingredients gave me two big-ish portions:
| - 10 grams of tomato past - 1 stock cube - 1 clove of garlic - 1 piece of ginger - 1 cup of amaranth leaves (I also added Swiss chard and rocket) - 2 pieces of green onion stalk - 200 grams of wild game mince - 1/3 cup of barley - 1 tsp of fig preserve |  |
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I am so lucky to have beautiful amaranth plants growing in my garden. Throughout the years, I have been adding it to my cooking. They always add a lovely depth of flavour that I now miss when I do not add them to my dishes.
Method/Process
I harvested some spring/green onion seed heads, so I thought why not use the "stalks" which are basically hollow green onions? Obviously, they are very fibrous, so they need to be cooked for a long time. Barley risotto needs to cook for 40 minutes, so I thought this would be perfect.
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| - So, I started by adding green onions, garlic, and ginger to the pot with some hot oil in it. | - I then added the barley to the oil and onion mixture and cooked it for a little while. |
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| - I added the tomato paste at the end. | - Watch out not to burn it, but giving the tomato paste some heat unlocks more flavour. |
At this stage, I added some boiling water to the pan before it had time to burn. The risotto should cook for at least 30 minutes but ideally 40 minutes. I continually add hot water to the mix. Ideally, you would have used stock, but I did not have it on hand. I only had some stock blocks/cubes.
When the barley is cooked through, I boil off most of the liquid until it is thick and sticky.
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Whilst this is going on, I cook the meat. I love my cast iron skillet for this. It gets the meat really nice and crispy and it helps with the maillard effect. Because wild game meat does not have lots of fat, you will need to add some extra oil/fat.
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As soon as the meat had cooked through, and when I achieved nice browning, I added the chopped-up leafy greens.
The residual heat will cook the leafy greens, but add enough oil to "fry" the leaves as this will add more flavour.
As soon as this is cooked, I put it in another bowl, because there will be nice fond on the bottom of the pan. I empty the pan, add some of the boiling water, and scrape off all the good stuff from the bottom of the pan. I then add this liquid to the still-cooking risotto.
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When the barley is fully cooked, sticky, and coated with thick sauce, I add the wild game mince and amaranth mixture to the barley. I mix this thoroughly and then it is done!
The amaranth leaves look so nice as decorations, so I used the opportunity to try and make it look nice. Even though it does not add to the taste, we do eat with our eyes, and it looks pretty!
Postscriptum, or Make this for You!
This dish is really healthy, cheap, and so good. I got two big portions from my ingredients and it lasted the whole day. The barley is apparently very low GI so it is a good source of energy.
But in any case, I hope that you will make this for you. It is really easy to make, although it takes a little bit longer than typical risotto.
Please let me know in the comments if you made this for you and how it went.
For now, happy cooking and stay well!
All of the writings in this post are my own, and the recipe is my own. The photographs are also my own, taken with my iPhone.