Questions for those that have made the Smothered Chicken & Barley

[aggie94]

First, can you recommend a veggie side dish to go with this? I gotta have my veggies and can't decide if just my standard fare of roasted assorted veggies (broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, green beans) will do.

Second, I don't have any ground red pepper. :o Apparently, I left it in Eugene. It's only 1/8 tsp - can I leave it out? Or can I sub ground chipotle or up the chili powder or something?

[valchemist]

a side of roasted veggies will be great with this. I actually didn't even serve it with a side dish, since I thought it was a pretty complete meal all in one dish -- grain, meat, and veggies (onions and red bell peppers).

it will be fine without the cayenne. I think just increasing the amount of chili powder would be sufficient. but if you want to add that smoky chipotle flavor, give it a try. I left out the mint and cinnamon when I made it, so I think the chipotle powder would have worked well for me. but if you decide to leave the cinnamon and mint in, then maybe there would be too many flavors competing? I'm not sure.

[slknight]

Eva, roasted veggies would be fine. Val's right though, it is a pretty complete and filling meal just by itself. But then again, I don't eat a whole lot of veggies.:o

I also think it would be fine without the ground red pepper. This isn't the kind of dish that I think you can really mess up. A little more of this, a little less of that, it still tastes great. I'm not too strict when I measure the spices for this one. By the way, I always leave out the mint and sometimes leave out the cinammon too.

[HeatherTx]

I just served it with a spinach salad which was plenty. We were stuffed. I did use the mint and cinnamon and really really liked the cinnamon in this dish. It is very faint and I am not one that typically thinks cinnamon and meat pair well. I couldn't taste the mint at all. I think upping the chili powder would be good but don't know that I would use the chipotle powder in this dish. It has so many flavors that the chipotle powder "might" overpower it. Then again it might be great. Let us know how you end up making it!!!:)

[aggie94]

Thanks, guys. I was planning to leave out the mint since I don't have any, and was undecided on the cinnamon. I'm not normally a fan of sweets-meats, but it sounds like it's faint anyway, so I may go ahead and throw it in.

I'll either up the chili powder a touch or buy some cayenne if I happen to be somewhere where they sell bulk spices. Sounds like it won't be too big a tragedy to leave it out. And I guess roasted veggies will work fine. It does sound mostly like an all-in-one meal, except I don't really think of onions and red peppers as veggies. I really need something green!!

[Tiger]

I made this tonight and thought it was very good. My DH liked it too.
I used bone in chicken breasts which worked well. I did put in the cinnamon and mint. I cut back on the cinnamon and couldn't even taste the mint.
The best part was it's a complete meal in one pan. And unlike a cassorole it doesn't take up a lot of dishes before it gets there.
It was the first time I made barley and was suprised that my DH liked it.
I'll be making this again. I have to admit that it would have been a better winter meal than on a HOT day like today!

[Jasmine-Rose]

I made this last night and we liked it a lot. I was skeptical when I was putting all the ingredients in the pan - it was a lot of liquid! Add in the fact that I'm not a fan of canned diced tomatoes and I just wasn't sure I was going to like this, but I did. I used Glen Muir Fire Roasted Diced Tomatoes, left out the mint, used boneless chicken breasts (each half cut in half) and increased some of the spices. Next time I'll add some frozen corn and a bit of green bell pepper to increase the veggie content and to add more color.

The chicken came out wonderfully tender. And because it simmered for a while in a single pan, I was able to get all the other dishes done before dinner so clean up after dinner was quick.

Thanks to all who reviewed this on this thread and others. Many times the positive reviews will motivate me to try something I might not have otherwise. That's one of the great things about this board :) .

[HeatherTx]

We love this recipe and I make it often. It was on the menu for tonight but I got involved in making play doh and got in a time crunch. Just wanted to let everyone know it works in a pressure cooker too. I browned the chicken first in my pressure cooker then took the chicken out and threw the other ingredients in and put the chicken back on top. Brought it to temp and cooked 25 minutes (I checked at 15 minutes and the barley wasn't done). I think I would decrease the liquid by 1/2 cup though next time I do it in my pressure cooker. I ended up cooking it a few minutes stovetop to steam some liquid out.