The Yum Diaries

Beef barley soup

We in Western Washington are experiencing a cold spell. And let me tell you, when you’re used to winters where it rarely drops below 40 degrees in the day time, 25 degrees during the day and 18 degrees at night just feels damn cold. (Anyone out there in places that get actual weather in the winter, please keep your chuckles to yourselves.) Nothing is better than a warm bowl of soup on days like the ones we’ve been having around here. (Well, except perhaps for someone cute to cuddle up and keep warm with, but our specialty is food, so we’re sticking to that.)

Yesterday, I had the day off. In addition to being good cold day food, it’s also good day off food because it’s such an easy thing to make. Toss some stuff in a pot, add some water, let it boil for a while, and eat. Nice and simple for a day when you’re not up for much but relaxing.

When it comes to soup, I’m ok with something fancy and adventurous once in a while, but what I really love are the standards. Chicken noodle, navy bean, split pea (extra ham, please), and yesterday’s soup du jour, beef barley.

Here’s how I made it. I usually improvise soups (and most other foods, now that I think about it), so this is not an exact recipe, and you can adjust it all you like.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 yellow onion
2 ribs celery
1/2 pound baby cut carrots
3 cloves garlic
2 tsp dried thyme
Salt and pepper to taste
1 pound beef stew meat
2 bay leaves
About a quart and a half of water
About 1/2 a cup of dry pearl barley

Directions:

So, I do everything as I go along when I cook…

Put your soup pot on the burner, on medium heat. Heat up the oil while you chop the onion. Toss in the onion and a little salt and stir. Chop the celery, add it to the pot, and give things another stir. Cut the carrots into pieces about an inch big, add them to the pot, and stir again. Let the onion/celery/carrot mixture continue to cook while you peel and mince the garlic. When the onions in the pot are just starting to get brown, toss in the garlic and mix it in. While the veggies are finishing, take the stew meat chunks and cut them into quarters, so you have little cubes. Once those are cut, toss them into the pot, add the dried thyme and some black pepper, and cook, stirring occassionally, until you can’t see red on the meat anymore. Add the water and bay leaves and stir, making sure to scrape any of the gooey sticky oniony beefy stuff off the bottom of the pan to get it mixed into your broth. Bring the pot to a boil, then turn the heat down low to medium low (just hot enough to keep it slowly bubbling) and cover. Let simmer for 3 hours or so, stirring occasionally. Add the barley, give the pot a stir, and let your soup continue to simmer for another hour and a half.

Your house will begin to smell fantastic about as soon as the soup gets to a boil. And yes, that is a rather long cooking time, but believe me, when you try the meat, you’ll know it was worth it. It should just about melt in your mouth. Also, the long simmer gives plenty of time for all the flavors to incorporate. And I’m about to go find out how much better it is after spending a night in the fridge.

For the vegetarians out there, I have made a reasonable substitute for beef barley soup using lentils in place of the beef. Obviously, you wouldn’t have to cook the soup for so long. For the same amount of soup, I would probably use about half a cup of dry brown lentils, put in after the veggies are done. For a little extra flavor, I used a couple of drops of sesame oil. Mushrooms would probably work well too, if you like them (I only like mushrooms if they do fun things to my head, so I rarely cook with them, so decide that one for yourself…). I would say about 2 hours should be enough cooking time.