Oh Ottolenghi, how I can't quit you even though you ask for SO many ingredients in your dishes, and the construction of said dishes can often be more complicated than the effort I want put in.
The latest siren's call from Ottolenghi island was the Barley Risotto with Marinated Feta in the cookbook Jerusalem. The recipe called for a number of items that I didn't have at home, but provided me with the intriguing opportunity of cooking with pearl barley for the first time.
The pearl barley ended up being quite easy to source (at every nearby grocery store), but the passata tomatoes proved impossible to find (with my admittedly limited effort at three stores, but one of those was a Whole Foods, so I'll go ahead and call this impossible).
My laziness / confusion about what I had in my cupboards also led me to substitute in fresh lemon feel, oregano for caraway seeds (why not) in the marinated feta, and one can of tomato sauce for the passata.
The result was really good - my husband in particular loved it. While I was paranoid that I had way too much liquid in for the amount of pearl barley the recipe called for it, but the pearl barley absorbed the full amount of liquid really well.
My main hesitation about making this dish again was how tangy and slightly sour the risotto was. That strong flavor was nicely cut by the marinated feta, making them truly a great combination, but I still found the risotto to be too tangy to consume the leftovers over the coming days. I eventually froze the risotto, thinking I would later want to eat it, but I recently threw it away knowing that it just doesn't suit my palate.
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