Mildly Curried Turkey Barley Dish (Rice Cooker)

Demandy's Note:

This is a mild, slightly sweet dish I concocted because I wanted to combine an Acorn squash with some ground turkey and barley. Barley is my new favorite grain, this is a very healthy combo! Note: You can probably put the diced squash in uncooked and it will cook with the rest of the food, but I wasn't brave enough to try it on my first attempt. My research found that steamed squash can cook in 25 minutes, so it should have plenty of time to cook in this dish without pre-nuking.

• Total Time: 1 hrs 30 mins
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 1 hrs

Ingredients:

Servings: 6

• 1 cup pearl barley
• 1 medium onion, diced
• 1 tart apple, diced
• 1/2 yellow pepper, diced
• 1 acorn squash (or butternut)
• 1 lb lean ground turkey (or beef or lamb)
• 3 teaspoons curry powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garam masala (optional)
• 1/2 teaspoon cumin
• 1 (14 1/2 ounce) can chicken broth
• 1/4 cup water

Directions:

1. Cut squash in half and put in microwave dish, cut sides down. Nuke covered for 5 minutes on high in 1/4" of water.
2. Turn on rice cooker (regular switch or quick steam) and cook turkey and onion together. When turkey is browned, drain off fat.
3. Remove squash from microwave. Careful, it is hot! Score the squash flesh vertically and horizontally to make 1 inch squares. Scoop out squash cubes into cooker.
4. Add rest of ingredients to cooker. Stir to combine.
5. Set rice cooker to "brown rice" setting and cook until done. If you have a one button cooker, turn it on and check when done. You may need to do 1.5 cycles to fully cook the barley.

Reviews

[Mary of the Midwest]

We thought this was an awesome, healthy dinner! There's only two of us so I made a half recipe and it worked out great. In fact, we're planning on making it again later this week to use up the other half of the ingredients! The only difficult part was cutting up the acorn squash but it was my first time, so it might get better with practice. Thanks Panthur, I always love your rice cooker recipes (and cookbook)!

[yogiclarebear]

This was just great! I had to make a few changes, and thanks to a fellow 'Zaar member, I was able to do this with QUICK barley. Here is what I did: 1. Peel butternut squash (I subbed) and cut into 1" cubes. 2. Cook turkey and onion (and I added garlic) in a large pot until turkey is cooked halfway, medium heat. 3. Add raw squash and continue to cook and stir until squash is starting to tender. 4. Add apple and pepper, and cook about 5 minutes more. 5. Put everything in the rice cooker, with the QUICK barley and set it to ON. 6. After it finishes and switches to warm, wait about 15 minutes to steam the barely. What I found is that it could have used a tad more liquid, and maybe some salt. Thanks for the great recipe, I'm so excited to have used my rice cooker for this!