Cooking has been pretty routine of late as we’re waiting for the builders to finish with our new apartment. They’re at that stage which I’m optimistically calling “looks-much-worse-than-it-could-possibly-be”, where there are no floors, doors or lights, five different companies working and about as many languages all being spoken at once. I’m a bit scared to go in, frankly.
So I’m writing from a residence round the corner and cooking in a kitchen which was equipped to cater for the needs of coked-up Miami party animals, by which I mean it has a very decent corkscrew but not much else. Since Mr. R&R and I are more the types to curl up on the sofa and debate the relative merits of Olympic curling versus the new batch of American Idols, I’ve had to do a bit of improvising to avoid eating Buitoni four-cheese ravioli every single night. (Doubly frustrating as we have a gorgeous supermarket round the corner with all sorts of tempting ingredients…)
This is one of my solutions, a one-pot wonder of goodness which can be cooked in the worst of kitchens – you just need one saucepan, one knife and one chopping board. Like most soups it gets better after a couple of days and of course improves even more (as do most things I find) with a fat swirl of olive oil and a good grating of parmesan. An antidote to ready meals and living out of a suitcase.
N.B. The recipe calls for just 1 glass of red wine. I take it as read that the stressed-out reader will know what to do with the remainder.
One-pot barley soup
- 2 tbsps olive oil, plus more to serve
- 1/2 large onion
- 2 sticks celery
- 1 medium carrot, or 3 baby ones
- 2 rashers bacon, or related pork product such as pancetta or guanciale
- 1 largish red skinned potato, about 200g
- 1 leek
- 100g pearl barley, the type that doesn’t require pre-soaking
- 2 large tomatoes
- 1 large glass red wine
- 1 chicken stock cube, preferably Knorr
- 2 good handfuls of chopped greens – rainbow chard, spinach, cavolo nero etc.
Chop the onion, celery and carrot really finely – remember the soup will not be blended so you don’t want even a hint of chunkiness here. Sauté them very gently in olive oil for at least 15 minutes until really soft – if they threaten to catch, cover with a lid and/or add a little water so they can steam too.
Meanwhile, chop the bacon, slice the leek finely and scrub the potato and cut into 1cm dice. Add these to the onion mixture and sauté these too for around 5 minutes. Measure the pearl barley and add this to the vegetables, turning it in the oil for a few minutes as you would do for risotto.
Turn up the heat and throw in the red wine, allowing it to bubble down for a few minutes before adding about 1 1/4 litres of water. If you have the means to heat it beforehand great – otherwise just keep on a strong heat until it’s really up to the boil. Chop the tomatoes, and then add them to the pan. Adjust the heat to a gentle simmer and cook uncovered for about 40 minutes until the barley is tender. I needed to skim the top of the soup a little to get rid of some bubbles, but this is easily done with a tablespoon.
Add the greens a few minutes before serving, with olive oil to drizzle, a good grating of parmesan and crusty bread if you’re lucky enough to have it.
