pearl barley, bacon & leek casserole

A gentleman's evening tonight: red wine, the mighty arsenal on the television and a manly bacon, leek and pearl barley casserole. Crikey, I'm masculine. Maybe I'll listen to the Georgette Heyer novel on Radio 7 later, and read Nuts?


I've cooked this for the anas, which didn't go down well, so it's become one of those dishes I look forward to cooking when I'm home alone. It's weird though, the first time I cooked it and this time, it was fantastic. What did I do wrong last time?

If I was being critical, I would say the dumplings were a little stodgy, although using gruyere rather than cheddar worked better than I expected.

sources
pearl barley, bacon & leek casserole - Delicious, February 2009, p24