Mushroom Barley Soup

At work, they make me eat lunch, and I’m not gonna eat their lunch, so I have to bring my own, and it’s ever so troublesome, but whaddya gonna do.

I decided this week to try making some soup ahead of time, freeze it, and have enough for lunch every day. I’ve not made soup before, and I’ve not frozen soup I’ve made, soooooo this is a first!

Mushroom Barley Soup

Blend in a soup pot over high heat:

• 50ml of oil
• 15ml of butter

Add:

• 680g of mushrooms
• (I estimated, so I may have used too much, and it was consequently more shroom and less soup) (I used white button mushrooms, brown button/chestnut mushrooms, enoki, nameko and dried shiitake.) (Let the dried shiitake soak in hot tap water for 20 minutes to rehydrate. Save the water.) (You can use whatever mushrooms you like, though.)
• 120ml of chopped shallots

Cook, stirring often, until the mushrooms are wilted, about 5 minutes. Add:

• 50ml of wine
• thyme

Reduce the heat to low and cook, stirring and scraping brown bits off the bottom of the pot, for 5 minutes. Stir in:

• 1L of beef stock/consommé
• (if you’re using dried mushrooms, and you saved the water, mix your stock powder/goo/cube with the saved mushroom water for SUPER MUSHROOM BEEF BROTH WOOOO)
• 180ml of pearl barley
• (大麦 in Japanese, find it in the ‘stuff to stir in to your rice before you cook it’ section of the supermarket)
• salt and pepper, not too much

Bring to a boil, reduce the heat, cover, and simmer until the barley is tender, 45 minutes to an hour, depending on your stove, your pot, your barley, etc.

I’m not sure how it ought to be. As I mentioned, I may have over shroomed, and desoupied the soup. Alternatively, the nameko may have served to thicken the soup. Either way, it was quite thick and chunky, but that’s how I like it. Sticks to the spoon instead of my shirt.

Anyway, give it a go! It’s really quite delicious.