This recipe came about the other day when Oatmeal went to a dinner and a movie with a friend while I relaxed at home. Since I work long hours, I rarely get the apartment all to myself, so I wanted to make the most of it! Normally, that means consuming an entire pint of Ben and Jerry’s straight from the box while sobbing hysterically because none of my research works and I’ll never graduate from school. However, I’ve promised Oatmeal I’ll stop doing that (is it too late for take-backsies?), so I decided instead to make a meal with ingredients that Oatmeal usually gives me a hard time about: red meat and alcohol.

Lamb is one of my favorite meats, and red wine goes perfectly with lamb (especially Bordeaux, the one wine pairing I can ever remember!). I knew that red wine usually contains notes of dark, red fruit such as cherries, so I decided to add some of those into the mix. The rest is history!

This dish is really, really good! There is a nice taste of lamb throughout, accented by tender morsels which burst with flavor and are complemented by the light flavor of wine and berries. The cherry halves provide a dash of sweet to accentuate the meal, and the barley serves as a nice, creamy base for all of it, resulting in a refreshing, comforting dish.

Lamb & Berry “Barley-otto”

• 1 lb ground lamb
• 1/3 cup crushed raspberries
• ¾ cup crushed black berries
• ¾ cup stemmed, pitted, halved cherries
• 2 cups washed, uncooked barley
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• Olive oil
• 1 ½ cups red wine (Bordeaux)
• Around 3-4 cups chicken broth

Preheat the oven to 350 °F.

In a 9 x 13 in., deep baking dish (2 in. deep should be fine), mix the lamb, raspberries, black berries, and cherries until uniformly mixed. Cover the top of the dish with aluminum foil, and bake in the oven for 35-40 minutes.

Now, we’re going to cook the barley like a risotto, so let’s cover how that’s done. As ol’ Mamma Ice Cream taught me, “The rice should never look dry.” Despite working with barley, the same principle applies here. The barley should always look wet or creamy, never dry. Whenever the barley starts to dry out, add another ½ cup of liquid to it (in this recipe, we use either wine or broth). A good way to tell if you need to add more liquid is by scraping the bottom of the pot with your spoon, and seeing how quickly the barley-liquid mix fills in. If it fills in immediately or quickly, you’re still good. If it lags behind by a second or so, it’s time to add more. Check the video for examples!

While the lamb is cooking, sauté the onions in the olive oil until translucent. Stir in the barley, and cook while stirring until it reaches a boil. Add a ½ cup of the wine and stir constantly. When the wine has boiled off appropriately (check the video for an example), add another ½ cup of the wine. Let it boil down once more and add the last ½ cup. From here on out, switch to the chicken broth. Continue to stir the barley, adding chicken broth as needed to keep it from drying out. After 30 minutes of cooking, (counting from when the barley hit the oil/onions,) taste the barley to see if it’s cooked (like al dente, it should have a nice give, but not be too hard or too soft.

Once the barley is ready, add the lamb/berry mixture to the barley, and stir until evenly combined. Continue to cook it until the excess liquid has boiled off and the “barley-otto” is at your desired consistency.

I prefer to add salt at the table, since it’s always easier to add salt than to remove salt.

Enjoy!