Well, that didn’t work. I tried adapting a recipe yesterday and it was a total frost.
The right way to cook this recipe creates a great side dish for a pot luck, or a solid meal for two with leftovers. The grains are chewy and smoky and savory and salty, with just enough sausage grease mixed in to flavor them, and there’s just enough meat to make you feel virtuous about your protein intake. It reheats well, too.
Normally I do this:
¾ cup each dried barley, brown rice, and wheat berries
4 cups stock or water
1 lb. sweet, mild, or spicy Italian sausage links pricked all over with a fork
I throw all that into a casserole, cover it, and put it in the oven for an hour at 325 degrees. Then, when it’s done, I slice up the sausage links into nibbles, return them to the casserole, and stir ’em in.
Yesterday I was feeling creative. You know how that goes. Because I had no wheat berries, I used barley, sweet sticky rice (like for sushi), and brown rice. Also, I had no Italian sausage but I did have two smoked ham hocks that had been frosting over in the freezer for goodness knows how long. I cooked ‘em the same way, using plain water.
This did not work out. It turns out sushi rice is a very persnickety substance. Also, the ham hocks have a simpler flavor, and maybe they were kind of old and stale. The result was greasy without being tasty, and the grains, instead of coming out smoky and chewy, were a weird texture, both gluey and lumpy.
Memo to self: Don’t fix a recipe if it ain’t broke.
______________________________________________
Just out, another new collection of short stories called The Ladies Who Got Away, containing “A Princess of Wittgenstein,” a steampunk romance where the metal meets the meat; two short stories, “The Harlot Escapes” and “The Harlot Deserts,” set in a fantastical pseudo-Byzantine city, where the powerful and beautiful Monatin is the proprietrix of an elegant putatorium; and “Perfect for Her Setting,” an erotic romance about an adventurous Earl and an even more demanding high flyer.
