Whenever a particularly wild or miserable spate of weather strikes, I’m reminded of why I keep homemade soup in the freezer.
The soups vary from curried pumpkin to bases for cream soups like clam chowder or “baked potato.” But just the comfort of pulling a container from the cache and having a homey, healthy, delicious meal ready in less than 30 minutes makes the type of soup largely irrelevant.
There is one recipe, though, that I’m still craving a couple weeks after introducing it for a visit with my mom. Adapted from a recent issue of Bon Appetit magazine, it goes beyond the typical barley and mushroom soup of the sort accompanying a recent A la Carte story about a fundraiser for local food pantries. If you don’t already have plans, stop by the Empty Bowls sale in Ashland this evening and pick up a few handmade vessels for your homemade soup.
But back to the soup, itself. Bon Appetit’s version is vegetarian, but I couldn’t pass up using my homemade lamb stock, covered in a previous post. As I stated earlier, having frozen stock on hand allows you to assemble a flavorful soup in about 30 minutes.
Wild mushrooms from the season’s first trip to the Rogue Valley Growers and Crafters Market were an obvious addition to this soup. My garden provided enough tender greens and green onions for about half the recipe, and my herb pot fortunately had already sprouted mint.
Because the recipe called for fennel fronds, I adapted it to use the entire bulb for about half the quantity of onions. If you’ve never used fennel in a soup, it adds a sweetness I thought would nicely offset the sour lemon juice and salty cheese.
I cooked the barley as directed and started sweating one diced yellow onion and the diced fennel in a separate pot. But instead of adding the aromatics to the barley, I deglazed them with some marsala wine, covered them with stock and brought the mixture to a simmer.
Then I added chopped greens. When those had darkened in color and wilted after about five minutes, I added the drained barley, followed by the sliced mushrooms and green onions and the chopped herbs.
I warned my mom against salting the soup as it cooked and was justified to find the lemon juice and herbs added enough brightness that salt was unnecessary. My husband was skeptical of the feta crumbles, but the cheese provided the perfect contrast to this soup’s earthiness.
This soup also would be delicious with peas instead of greens. Make enough to freeze some, omitting the cheese until you defrost the soup for a quick meal.
