Barley Mushroom Soup
Passed down from my Grandmother; I love it year round, but especially on chilly days. So easy to make; healthy and filling.
Passed down from my Grandmother; I love it year round, but especially on chilly days. So easy to make; healthy and filling.
- 3 stalks celery chopped
- fresh dill
- 1 package manischewitz soup mix, vegetable w/ dried mushroom
- 1 pound bone in chuck or flanken (short ribs)
- 1 large onion peeled whole
- 2 1/2 teaspoons salt and pepper
- 3 thin parsnips chopped
- 3 carrots chopped peeled
- 1 large potato chopped peeled
- 1 handful dried shiitake mushrooms
- Carbohydrate 3.98885203125 g
- Cholesterol 0 mg
- Fat 0.0764595833333333 g
- Fiber 0.983736717118571 g
- Protein 0.430139427083333 g
- Saturated Fat 0.01698265625 g
- Serving Size 1 1 Serving (100g)
- Sodium 109.848604166667 mg
- Sugar 3.00511531413143 g
- Trans Fat 0.0220127786458333 g
- Calories 17 calories
Step-by-step
- Place the meat, whole onion and salt & pepper in a large soup pot; fill with water and bring to a boil. Skim fat off top. Reduce heat to medium, cover pot and cook for 1 hour.
- Break up dried mushrooms into small pieces and soak in hot water for 10 to 15 minutes; add to soup. Add Manischewitz vegetable soup mix, including seasoning packet, carrots, celery, parsnips and potatoes. Cook soup over medium flame for 1 to 2 hours.
- Break meat apart and remove bones. Break onion apart. Add salt & pepper to taste. Serve in bowls garnished with fresh dill.
Swapping bone-in chuck for boneless shin changes the collagen release rate, requiring a longer simmer to achieve the same broth viscosity. Scaling this recipe up or down requires maintaining the liquid-to-grain ratio precisely, because pearl barley absorbs roughly three times its volume in liquid during prolonged simmering. Doubling the root vegetables without increasing the pot diameter traps too much steam, altering starch gelatinization in the potatoes and parsnips. When reducing the batch by half, decrease the initial one-hour meat simmer time by fifteen minutes to prevent over-concentrating the salinity from the initial seasoning. Dried shiitake mushrooms rehydrate efficiently in water heated to 180 degrees Fahrenheit, releasing soluble glutamates that build umami depth regardless of batch size. For dietary adaptations, substituting the beef with seitan requires dropping the initial meat-simmer phase entirely, adding the wheat protein during the final thirty minutes of cooking to avoid rubbery textures. Fresh dill degrades rapidly under prolonged heat, so add the herb during the final two minutes of cooking or directly into individual bowls to preserve volatile aromatic compounds.
