Barley, Lentil & Mushroom Soup
Barley, Lentil & Mushroom Soup
Another great recipe using barley, This is very delicious and well liked by the family. Lots of variants listed in the Recipe notes section. Keep in mind, when looking at the photos, the pot is for my pressure cooker, this soup is NOT a pressure cooker dish, I simply use the pot as a good thick walled soup pot when not pressure cooking.
Ingredients
- 1/4 cup olive oil
- 1 medium onion, diced
- 1 stalk import celery, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped or Rangiri (see Recipe Notes)
- 3/4 cup dry barley
- 3/4 cup dry brown lentils
- 2 quarts beef broth, fresh or from powder, (8 cups)
- 1/4 teaspoon dried thyme
- 1 teaspoon dried parsley
- 1/4 teaspoon black pepper
- 1 bay leaf
- 4 cups fresh Shiitake mushrooms, stemmed, sliced, or button or straw
Instructions
- Heat the oil in a large pot on medium heat, when hot, add the onion and cook, stirring often to just soften the onion, not browned. About 5 minutes.
- Add the carrot and celery and cook another 5 minutes.
- Now add the barley and lentils and stir to coat them with the oil. Cook, stirring often to lightly toast them.
- Add the broth, thyme, parsley, pepper, and bay leaf, stir together, and bring to a boil. Stir in the mushrooms, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 25 minutes, stir occasionally.
- When the lentils and barley are good and tender, remove the bay leaf. Taste and adjust seasonings as desired.
- Serve and enjoy.
Notes
I will price this when I can source lentils. Barley is cheap. For now, for 8 servings, I will say this is low cost.
For the carrots: I use a Japanese style of chopping carrots, called Rangiri, which is basically, cut a piece of the carrot off at an angle, then rotate the carrot 1/4 turn, cut another piece off at an angle, repeat the turning and cutting. This makes for bite size pieces, and a larger surface area giving two uses, first, it absorbs more of the stock flavor, and second, it cooks faster with a larger surface area.
Variants: 1. Add a diced potato. 2. Add 1/2 cup broken spaghetti. 3. Add a tablespoon of balsamic vinegar. 4. Replace the beef broth with vegetable stock. 5. Increase the broth or stock to 3 or 4 quarts. 6. Brown 500 grams (1 lb) ground beef and add to the soup.
Adapted from an internet recipe.
Lee made this soup yesterday, very tasty! This will be a good soup to make when we have family visiting.
Made as written on 25 Aug 2018, only item I was missing was the celery, certainly not a show stopper. Mushrooms used were Oyster and worked perfect. This, is a delicious soup! Well liked by the family, on my go to list now.