I should be sharing the joys of my week in tropical Darwin, but it’s cold and raining and I’ve just had a great chat with my brother regarding soup. His household in the cold Blue Mountains have feasted on a batch of homemade minestrone for some days. He suddenly realised that soup had been a missing ingredient in his past life.
No, I don’t believe Mothers should be the only providers of nurture, but his ex did have “domestic goddess” aspirations, unfortunately they did not extend to comfort food. So when I told David I’d just made barley soup he requested the recipe. My barley soup tastes somewhat like my mother’s, except that being a lazy baby boomer if I make a pot of barley soup, that’s dinner. Not for my Mum who regularly provided three course dinners, midweek, and yes, she went out to work. Here she is with her grandchildren and one great grandchild – she’s looking pretty good from 90 years of homemade soup, as are her descendants.
So, some years ago, driven by nostalgia I figured this would work – and it does, though I doubt Mum used lamb shanks, though they were so cheap back in the day, damn our new found cosmopolitanism! Back then my father couldn’t give away the massive tuna he caught. But those were the days, when men were men and squid was bait.
Now be warned I have no accurate measurements for this soup– only estimates and you will add or subtract whatever you do or don’t like, beef bones can be used instead of lamb, but for me the soup should be thick with cabbage. I blame it on my Eastern European ancestry but recognise that not everyone likes cabbage.
Barley Soup
In a large pot sauté:
Olive oil as needed (not that my Mum would have used olive oil)
A few bay leaves
2 lamb shanks
1 large chopped onion
2 cloves chopped garlic
*½ large diced capsicum
*2 celery sticks finely sliced
then add
2T ground coriander
2t ground paprika
Then add ¾ cup of barley that has been soaking at least 2 hours
Cover with water or stock of your choice and ½ cup of wine.
Add 2 diced carrots
*2 diced potatoes
Bring to the boil reduce to simmer and cook for approx. 2 hours till barley is tender and lamb is falling from the bone.
At this point I season with salt and pepper.
Finally I add half a coarsely chopped cabbage, I like big hunks and just submerge it in the soup till cooked through, I like to keep the crunch.
You may remove the lamb from the bone if you like or provide a shank in bowl, obviously more shanks can be used.
Enjoy.
*these are optional and to taste, any vegetable can be used really but I try and avoid cauliflower when using cabbage, because sometimes you can have too much roughage!