Sometime during my recent visits to Sicily, Barcelona and Puglia the elements of this recipe starting fomenting in my ravenous mind. Once home with enough time to play around with my ideas, I was keen to create what’s turned out to be a really scrumptious dish: squid and chickpea barley.
This is a delicious and textured dish to assemble and takes little skill to prepare. For those who’ve never cooked with squid before, it is super easy and requires hardly any time at all.
I’m including this recipe as part of my Taste of Puglia series because one of the key ingredients – chickpeas – comes compliments of I Murgini, a farming collective based in Puglia with a mission to grow “organic lentils and ancient grains” and produce from them products “void of refined sugar and artificial additives” and an aim to reduce air pollutant emissions, renew the organic soil fertility, protect the environment, and produce healthy food.
I Murgini’s chickpeas – even just on their own – have so much more flavour than any standard off-the-shelf variety I’ve had in the past. In all honestly, as tasty as I believe my recipe to be, the chickpeas with just a touch of salt and maybe some parsley would have been a flavourfully fine dish on their own.
In addition to the chickpeas, the Murgini folks sent me a package filled with other products they’re grown. My hope is to make more time to prepare some recipes with them.
Along with a handful of other yummy Pugliese recs, I gave I Murgini a mention a few posts back in my A Taste of Puglia: Eating write up. For more information, visit the collective online at imurgini.it.
SQUID AND CHICKPEA BARLEY Yum
Ingredients (4-6 servings)
• 500g chickpeas;
• 200g pearl barley;
• 1 anchovy fillet;
• Olive oil to taste;
• Sea salt to taste;
• 3-4 diced garlic cloves;
• Seeds from 1 pomegranate;
• About 50g of raisins;
• 1 fennel bulb finely sliced;
• Chopped mint to taste;
• Chopped parsley to taste;
• Chopped coriander to taste;
• Chopped oregano to taste;
• Chopped chives to taste;
• Paprika to taste;
• Black pepper to taste;
• 600g squid tube rings;
• 25-30g pine nuts;
• Juice from one lemon;
• Rocket to taste (optional)
Method
This recipe assumes the barley and chickpeas are already cooked, drained, and ready to eat (preferably still warm), and that the squid is already prepared and ready to be cooked.
• Combine the barley and chickpeas in a large bowl and mix evenly;
• Add a few generous pinches of salt along with the fennel, pomegranate seeds, raisins and about half the lemon juice to the bowl and mix evenly;
• Stir in the mint, parsley, coriander, oregano, and chives to the mix;
• Sprinkle a dash of paprika and freshly milled black pepper across the top;
• Cover and set aside.
• Pour a glug of olive oil into a frying pan or wok and set to high heat;
• Place the garlic, anchovy and a pinch of salt in the pan;
• Once the anchovy starts to disintegrate, add the squid and the pine nuts and stir fry until the squid starts to brown;
• Give the squid a squirt of lemon to the squid before removing from the pan;
• Place the squid atop the mixture in the bowl.
Serve
Consider serving this dish atop a rocket salad or with similarly peppery greens on the side. For added umph maybe pour on some pomegranate molasses to the mix.
Read more tikichris recipes.
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