Soup Recipes: Pearl Barley Soup (zuppa d’orzo)
Posted on Apr 20, 2009 06:35:31 PM
Now that spring is here, and windows can be left open and kitchen aromas can fly out, let’s continue the trend of winter soup recipes (after the lentils soup). This one is taken from Tobie Puttock’s Daily Italian (reading from Europe? click here)
This soup recipe is for 4-6 people:
- 100g (3½ oz) pearl barley
- 1.5 litres (2½ pints) chicken or vegetable stock
- 3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
- 1 large carrot
- 1 large zucchini
- 1 large potato
- 1 leek (the white part)
- 3 sticks of celery
- 1 large onion (or half if you’re not a onion lover)
- 2-3 finely sliced cloves of garlic
- 50g (2 oz) of diced bacon
- salt, pepper
Place the barley in a bowl and cover with tap water. Let it soak for one hour.
In the meantime, chop, slice, dice everything like a mad.
Heat the stock for the soup, and in another saucepan, heat the oil and sauté gently the carrot, zucchini, potato, leek, celery, onion, garlic, pancetta.
When the vegetables are a bit tender, add the stock and the drained barley.
Cover and let the soup simmer for one hour. If you like, take off the lid the last 15 minutes to make the soup a bit thicker.
More soup recipes and vegetable recipes
Soup recipes: Lentil Soup (zuppa di lenticchie)
Posted on Apr 9, 2009 06:34:42 PM
One of my favorite lentil soup recipes with red lentils.
This lentil soup recipe could be a side as well as a main course, it only depends on the quantity. Strangely enough though, lentils don’t seem to be very popular in Ireland, even though they have all it takes to make an excellent soup: they’re easy to cook, tasty and filling. In Italy on the other hand, they’re honored members of the tradition, but we tend to eat them in special occasions, like new year’s eve dinner, where lentils symbolize the money that new year is supposed to bring.
This recipe for lentil soup is very basic, it will feed two people for 2-3 days (they’re excellent for lunch boxes):
- 200g (½ pound) red lentils
- 2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
- ½ diced onion
- 3 diced carrots
- 75g (2 ½ oz) diced bacon
- 1/3 glass of white vine
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 liter (2 pints) of stock
- 1×400g tin (about 1 pound) of chopped tomatoes
- 3 diced riped tomatoes
Leave the red lentils to soften in a bowl in cold water for one hour.
Heat the olive oil in the sauce pan and add the diced onion carrots and bacon. When the sauté is lucid, pour a little bit of white wine and let it evaporate.
Add the red lentils and let them toast (think of it as a stage two of the basic risotto recipe).
Add the stock, the chopped tomatoes and the tomatoes and let it simmer for one hour, or until the lentils are tender enough.
Let the soup cook away, they don’t have to be al dente.