Mushroom-Barley Soup

Name: Mushroom-Barley Soup
Total time: 45 min
Yield: 4 servings
Ingredients: 1 ounce dried porcini mushrooms (about 1 cup); 2 tablespoons olive oil; 1/4 pound shiitake or button mushrooms, stemmed and roughly chopped; 3 medium carrots, peeled and sliced; 1 cup pearl barley; Salt and pepper; 1 bay leaf; 1 tablespoon soy sauce

By Mark Bittman

Total Time: 45 minutes
Rating: 4(1,501)
Comments: Read comments

Soup made without meat or meat broth can be insipid. That's why most people think pea soup needs ham and mushroom-barley soup needs beef. But it's possible to make a satisfying, even hearty, vegetarian soup if you choose your ingredients carefully and extract every bit of flavor from them. Enter this mushroom-barley soup, a vegetarian dish with real body, texture and depth of flavor. The key ingredient here is dried porcini, which can be reconstituted in hot water in less than 10 minutes, giving you the best-tasting mushrooms you can find outside the woods and an intensely flavored broth that rivals beef stock. Don’t forget to toast the barley while really browning the mushrooms and carrots — it lends a deep warmth.

Featured in: THE MINIMALIST; Beefy Soup Without The Beef

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Ingredients

Yield:4 servings

1ounce dried porcini mushrooms (about 1 cup)
2tablespoons olive oil
¼pound shiitake or button mushrooms, stemmed and roughly chopped
3medium carrots, peeled and sliced
1cup pearl barley
Salt and pepper
1bay leaf
1tablespoon soy sauce

Ingredient Substitution Guide

Preparation

Step 1
Soak porcini in 3 cups very hot water. Put olive oil in a medium saucepan and turn heat to high. Add shiitakes and carrots, and cook, stirring occasionally, until they begin to brown. Add barley, and continue to cook, stirring frequently, until it begins to brown; sprinkle with a little salt and pepper. Remove the porcini from their soaking liquid, and reserve liquid. Sort through porcini and discard any hard bits.
Step 2
Add porcini to pot and cook, stirring, for about a minute. Add bay leaf, mushroom soaking water and 3 cups additional water (or stock, if you prefer). Bring to a boil, then lower the heat to a simmer; cook until barley is very tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Add soy sauce, and taste. Add salt if necessary and plenty of pepper. Serve hot.

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Ratings

4 out of 5

1,501 user ratings

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Comments

Linda8 years ago

I've discovered pearl barley absorbs liquid and continues to do so.....it will no longer be a soup tomorrow. Try using real barley....takes a bit longer to cook, but is healthier and doesn't turn you soup into a stew.

kitchenonfire8 years ago

Oh, and I threw in a Parmesan rind while it was cooking. It added a nice extra dimension of flavor.

BERFB8 years ago

This was good, but needed tweaking. I added a good splash of cognac as my first liquid. I used a beef stock instead of the water and added fresh thyme with the bay leaf. This definitely needs several grinds of fresh pepper at the end.

Alex2 weeks ago

I really loved this. Added a splash of red wine and a couple parmesan wine since I had them on hand. Such deep flavor! Satisfying on a frigid day.

Nathan3 weeks ago

The only reason a soup of any kind -- meat or vegetarian -- would be flavorless is because the cook didn't put any flavorful ingredients in. There's no reason to demean vegetarian soups when the cause is the cook.

Nathan3 weeks ago

I don't know what vegetarian soups you're eating, but why would they be flavorless unless they are made badly? And why introduce a vegetarian soup that way?

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