There is an extremely famous song used to berate vegetarians all over the world that goes along the lines of “you don’t win friends with salad.” This of course is entirely untrue and This Little Pig has been known to make friends, bring warring nations to peace and heal the mildly hung-over with the salads it serves.

This Little Pig loves a good salad! If it could, this swine would roll itself up in a cool lettuce leaf and not come out for the duration of the summer (as long as it had a lot of food and a few cocktails in the lettuce leaf with it of course). Salads are easy to make, beautiful to look at and they’re super healthy, which gives This Little Pig a feeling of increased smugness every time it downs some leafy greens. On the topic of healthy, don’t be put off by the ultra healthy words such as “pearl barley” and “broccoli” piglets, this salad has some lovely punchy items that might even make you say “oh wow” as you take your first bite. Easy to whip up and glamorous on the eye, this has the potential to become a staple in every household in the entire nation. Oink.

Pearl Barley Salad with Creamy Ricotta, Mixed Summer Tomatoes, Preserved Lemon and Fresh Herbs.

Feeds: 2-3 Hungry Piglets

Prep Time: 10 Mins. Cooking Time: 35 Mins (of passive (read:lazy) watching while it cooks type of cooking time). 

Ingredients of Beautiful Barley Salad:

½ x Cup Pearl Barley

½ x Preserved Lemon Cheek

1 x Tbs Lemon Juice

2 x Tbs Olive Oil (good quality)

90g x Ricotta

200g x Mixed Cherry Tomatoes

4 x Spring Onion Stalks

1 x Broccoli head

½ x Mint Bunch

½ x Parsley Bunch

How to Make Beautiful Barley Salad:

• Place barley (1/2 cup) into a medium pot and fill to ¾ full with water.

• Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and continue to simmer for 35 mins.
• Halve your cherry tomatoes (200g) and cut your broccoli (1) into small trees.

• Finely dice your mint (1/2 bunch), parsley (1/2 bunch) and preserved lemon (1/2 cheek) and slice your spring onion (4 stalks) into small circles.

• 3 Minutes before the end of your barley cooking. Drop your broccoli heads into the hot barley water and allow to gently sit on top until bright green but still retaining some crunch.

• Drain your broccoli and barley well and then pour onto a salad serving plate – allow to cool a little.

• Scatter over your diced preserved lemon, herbs, cherry tomatoes and spring onion and gently mix it all together.
• Drizzle with your lemon juice and then finish with dollops of ricotta and a few extra mint leaves to make it look fancy (a good scrunch of pepper never goes astray either).
• Serve with a smug grin because that was super easy but to the untrained eye of a guest, it looked like a lot of effort. Oink.