smoky portabella barleysagna

I love lasagna as much as the next guy but wanted one with pasta that had some kick back. I’m a huge fan of barley, love its texture & resiliency so I figured it might have potential as a substitute for pasta if it could be formed into lasagna sheets in its natural intact form. This was the first experiment:



Begin with a one cup batch, cook it down till sludge-like then spread it out on a plastic wrap lined cookie sheet to a uniform thickness, then another sheet on top with some weight (I used a 5lb bag of rice). Into the fridge to set up (plan being that the starch would cement it all together to form a workable sheet).



The next day: removed the plastic wrap & sliced the barley sheets to fit the Pyrex dish:





So far so good, it held together. Here’s a small section trimmed off the side:



Meanwhile, grill some portabella mushrooms with some cherry smoke:





To the dish add whole milk ricotta that has been sufficiently flogged with air, locatelli, salt & pepper:







Then add the smoky sliced mushrooms:



Then the second sheet of ‘pasta’:



Top off with some mozzarella, olive oil, & herbs:



Back onto the cooker:



I baked this for about 30 minutes, around 350, just to get everything welded together & add a nice hint of smoke:



Sliced down:





On some simple sauce:





It was so good I hadda go in for a second:



This was tasty as hell & no harder or easier than making it with traditional lasagna sheets. It accomplished the desired effect, a texture difference between the pasta & the other ingredients. Probably has some health benefits as well over the alternative