Pearl barley with fresh garden spinach and roasted smoked Tofu.

Ingredients

• Half a cup of Pearl Barley
• A bowl full of Whole Leaf Spinach
• Three leaves of Garden Lovage (a.k.a. Maggi Kraut)
• A hand full of Garlic Chive
• Leftover Wild Garlic Buds (optional)
• Half a block of Smoked Tofu (~90g)
• One Onion
• Sesame, olive or rape seed oil
• Soy Sauce

Soak the barley in water for no longer than three hours.

Rinse the water and put it into a pot. Turn on the heat, add a cup of water, two whole leaves of lovage, a bit of salt and put a lid on the pot. When the water boils, turn down the heat to the lowest setting and skew the lid to create a small opening for the steam to evaporate.

Meanwhile cut the Tofu into whatever shape you enjoy - mine were roughly 2 by 1 cm blocks. Cut the onions into larger squares and chop the garlic chive and last leaf of lovage. Chop the spinach leafs into large pieces.

Heat up a bit of oil in the pan on the highest setting, throw in a piece of onion and wait until it starts sizzling. When it does, add the rest of the onions. Add the Tofu about half a minute later. I added the leftover wild garlic buds along the oil that was still in the glass. Let the onions and Tofu roast until they are starting to get brown. Use chopsticks for the Tofu pieces that don't want to flip. Don't roast the Tofu for too long, otherwise it looses it's chewy texture and becomes dry. Add a few drops of soy sauce - everything should start to sizzle and steam nicely. Grind a bit of chili into the mix.

Add the lovage, garlic chive and spinach leaves. Let it cook for a minute or two while occasionally stiring. Turn off the heat and keep the pan on the stove.

When the barley is ready, remove the lovage leaves. Put it into a bowl and mix with spinach and Tofu. Top the bowl with a sliced radish and sprinkle it with hemp seeds.