Meat and Barley Soup

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

This recipe works equally well with beef, or lamb. It is hearty, and delicious. It is also adaptable to your tastes. This is how I make it. Change it as you wish.

Ingredients:
1/3 cup pearl barley
2 scallions, rustic chopped
3 cloves garlic, Minced
1/4 cup baby peas
1/2 cup whole kernel corn, freshly cut from cob
2/3 lb. cubed beef or lamb
2 medium carrots, diced
1 stalk celery, sliced
1/2 cup halved grape tomatoes
4 cups water
2 tbs. unflavored gelatin
2 tbs. sunflower oil
1 tbs. kosher salt
1 tbs. ground black pepper
1 tsp. tapioca starch


Place oil in pressure cooker, or enameled dutch oven over medium heat. When oil is fragrant, add meat cubes, and season with the salt and pepper.
Saute until meat is lightly browned on all sides. Add the scallions and garlic. Continue cooking, and stirring for 2 minutes. Add the remaining ingredients. Place lid on PC, or Dutch oven.

If using pressure cooker, bring up to pressure, and reduce heat until the pressure regulator is barely moving. Cook for thirty minutes. after the time has elapsed, Remove the pot from the heat and release the pressure according to the appliance instructions. Remove the lid, stir, and enjoy.

If using a dutch oven, reduce heat to simmer and cook for 2 hours, or place in 350 degree F. oven and let cook for 2 hours.
You can reduce the water by one cup and add 1 cup of cream to this soup. You can add peppers, and other vegetables. Add BBQ sauce if you want./ This recipe can be altered in a thousand different ways. Make it you very own masterpiece. You could even make it with mini meatballs instead of cubed meat if you want, or with bratwurst, or kielbasa. Add kidney, or black beans to the soup. Add cabbage.

You can also make this soup using canned beef chunks, and canned vegges. Use stock or broth instead of water. If you really want to get fancy, add this - https://rouxbe.com/recipes/81-demi-glace-glace-de-viande, or thicken slightly with a browned roux.

Enjoy

Seeeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Kevin86]

Lighter flavour but barely is often over looked compared to noodles and rice for chicken soups as well

 

[Termy]

Gelatin ?

T

 

[skilletlicker]

I like barley a lot. Dinner tonight is going to be a chicken soup with chickpeas and barley. At the moment I only have pearled barley on hand and it's good. As usual though, I'm in the minority in preferring hulled barley, also called barley groats. If you're unsure of the difference, this page does a pretty good job of explaining it and showing the difference in pictures. I'll get a bag of hulled barley, probably imported from Russia or the Middle East next time I'm at the Mediterannean Grocery.

Termy, Question ?

 

[Kaneohegirlinaz]

I love Barley Chief.
The first time that I every used it, I made a similar dish and shared with the neighbors ... it made alot!

 

[pepperhead212]

Skillet, I'm another barley lover, and I also like the hulled barley. I also only have pearled barley at this time, because I got some deals on it, but I'm always looking for deals on hulled barley! I do that with all kinds of whole grains - I buy them in large amounts when there are deals on them, otherwise, I go without!

I almost always put more barley in the soups than the amounts called for, like that 1/3 c here. I almost always use barley in soups with mushrooms - two ingredients meant for each other!

Termy I wouldn't put gelatin in something like this, but I can see why they'd do it. It doesn't have much meat in it, and when meat like oxtail and shank meat is used in soups, or some broth made from a lot of scrap bones, it gives it that "lip smacking" quality, which is probably what the gelatin is supposed to do. Agar is another, vegetarian way, of adding this quality to soups.

 

[skilletlicker]

Pepperhead, what I like about the Mediterranean Grocery is that products like hulled barley that are common and popular in Europe and the Middle East are competitively priced even after import costs. In the US they have much lower consumer demand and that understandably increases the price somewhat but big-box retailers treat them like exotic and rare commodities charging as much as they think the market will bear. They usually call it "pragmatic pricing." I call it price gouging. Nowadays Amazon is taking it to ridiculous levels. I used to be able to buy Eastern European staples from Amazon at reasonable prices. Now they are often five or ten times the price of a little well-run Mom & Pop like Mediterranean Grocery.

Termy, in my very humble opinion you would usually add gelatin to a soup or stew to replace the collagen that would normally be added by cuts of meat with lots of connective tissue that were slowly cooked with the dish. Good quality bullion supplies both gelatin and flavor.

 

[Chief Longwind Of The North]

Gelatin is a cousin to poteen, and is made by boiling gristle, connective tissue, cartilage, and bones. It has both strong nutritional value, and produces a velvety, viscous mouthfeel to broths, stocks, and soups. The gel surrounding canned meats such as ham, Vienna sausage, spam, and others is collagen.

Cloven, or as it is more widely known, gelatin is used to make aspics, One of the signs of a good home made stock, or bone broth is that it gels when refrigerated.

Unknown to many, you can get a wonderful beef broth from ground beef. Simply cover the pan when browning the ground beef. When it is cooked through, pour off the liquid into a bowl, cover with plastic wrap and place into the fridge. Brown the ground beef.

When you need the broth for something, take it out, and remove the hardened tallow from the top. The remaining gel has great flavor, and heats into a great broth. I save up the liquids from ground beef over time, until I have enough for the recipe that requires broth. The beef tallow is also saved like bacon grease, and is great for frying potatoes.

Tip: If using rolled barley in soups, be careful how much you use. It adds wonderful texture. However, if you add too much, you get porridge. Now a good savory porridge on a cold, rainy day can make a good meal. But it isn't soup.

Don't limit the use of barley to soup. Rolled barley, when cooked, is nearly indistinguishable to rolled oats, and has more nutritional vale. It can be used cooked, or uncooked to replace, or augment rolled oats.

Here are some recipes for other ways to use this under-valued grain:

https://www.cookinglight.com/recipes/wild-mushroom-barley-stuffing

https://www.freshandnaturalfoods.com/recipe/apple-walnut-barley-stuffing/

Western Trails Food: Recipe Cards

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/barley-ice-cream-recipe

https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/spelt-barley-squash-risotto-recipe

I really like the idea of this one - https://www.greatbritishchefs.com/recipes/pot-roast-lamb-recipe

I guess you could paraphrase the Beef slogan to - Barley, it's what's for dinner.


Seeeeya; Chief Longwind of the North

 

[Termy]

Interesting. So I should get some unflavored gelatin.

T

 

[pepperhead212]

Good suggestion about the rolled barley, Chief! Many years ago I discovered that in an Amish market, back when I used to bake a few thousand cookies every Christmas season. I substituted rolled barley for the oats in a recipe that was always a favorite of those I was always giving the cookies to. I made some with oats, the usual rectangular cookies, and the barley cookies into squares, to distinguish them. Almost everyone loved them, and wanted to know what I did different with them, thinking they still had oats in them! A really delicious flavor. I discovered the first year, however, that this was one of those things that goes rancid, if kept at room temp a long time. Hulled and pearled barley have never gone bad for me, but, like cracked wheat, the seed is broken, and air gets to the oils. So now, it stays in the freezer until I need it.