No-recipe Mushroom Barley Soup

It seems like every other post these days, I am writing about soup. This is not accidental. I was brought up on a host of delicious home-made soups, in a family that ate hot soup regularly, even in the summer time. I realized fairly early on, when someone commented tactfully that the cabbage soup I wrote about in the summer, might be nice to make in cooler weather, that this is an unusual taste. Most people don't crave soup unless it's a little nippy outside. So I've been bottled-up, soup-wise. Now the dam is broken- who knows when I'll be able to stop the (sorry, sorry) flow.

Mushroom Barley Soup is one of those bedrock staples I cook in something resembling a trance, without much conscious thought. As Tara noted, these sturdy repetoire items are some of the greatest pleasures in cooking. They are a comfort both to cook and to eat, when we are not feeling so well, or just want things to go especially smoothly. It may be difficult to reconstruct them, because they are so comfortable that we are always varying them slightly, without too much risk of disappointment. Like just about every other soup I've made, it is just not very photogenic. It actually looks homely, but appealing, in person.

I generally make mushroom soup using some stock, and if it is a beef stock, I will include some of the boiled meat, cubed. There are always fresh and dried mushrooms, and potatoes. I sweat the carrots, leeks or onions, and other vegetables with the mushrooms in a bit of butter or oil first, and then add the stock, mushroom soaking liquid and cubed potatoes, with a bit of tomato paste.

A little soy sauce or worcestershire sauce is a good touch, and a dribble of chinese sesame oil adds a hard to identify richness. Various herbs in a teaball-a handful of barley, and about an hour burbling away will do it. I like my mushroom barley soup to taste deep brown, and if there's time, carmelized onions push those flavors. A little bit of brown sugar is sometimes nice, if the onions aren't as sweet as you'd like.Sometimes I put in a few peeled and seeded tomatoes. Today, I added some nice home canned ones. It is always good to put some fresh dill on top. I thimk it is better to add the dill to anysoup right before serving, as it seems to go a little bitter if you cook it along.

I just made a great big pot of this , and will have some bread and salad with it for dinner, followed by a really big pear, just ripe. I can take this with me for lunch all week, and feel lucky whenever I open the work fridge.I am also lucky enough to work in an office with a truly great big old lunch room, furnished with a real stove, two fridges, and lots of cooking and table stuff brought in from my coworkers' homes. We have a real coffee machine,too, the sort you see in diners-not an espresso one, but you can't have everything.

We got this when one of the secretaries won a "coffee for your whole office for a week" contest on the radio. The company came and set us up. Then, despite numerous calls to the station, no one ever came to reclaim it! We finally gave up, and called it our own. We have had lots of good parties in this room, reheating everything with ease, and it is a fine place to have breakfast and lunch, in good company. I'm not a person who would keep my job if I didn't need the money, but I do think amenities like this make it a whole lot easier to get up and catch the bus in the morning.

We are always saying that we should make a big pot of soup for everyone one day, or bake some bread. It would be fun to have good cooking smells drifting through the office in the morning. Mushroom barley soup would work.

Comments

[rae]

it's good to find another soup freak. i too eat searingly hot bowls of soup in the dead heat of summer. and spring. and winter. and fall too.

[Alisa]

There's an excellent mushroom barley soup recipe in the original Moosewood cook book. It has a picture at the top of the page of a barren, cold looking lakeshore. I like to cook the barley ahead of time and keep it in the freezer so I can just throw it in. I first had this soup in Berkeley across the street from the university, served with seeded baguette from Acme. It was delicous! There is tamari, as you suggest, and also sherry.

There's also a really fantastic recipe for cauliflower soup in Horn of the Moon cookbook (except I leave out the flour, added at the end of the recipe -- it just strikes me as disgusting). I think it would taste fresher if I added the dill at the end -- thanks for the suggestion.

I made your Nightingale Prunes and loved it. I gave a jar to my neighbors and they decided not to share it with anybody. We are converts!

[lindy]

Rae- Uh yes, and I failed to mention my similar preference for the searingly hot serving temp. This is not always seen as reasonable by the world at large.
My elderly and otherwise demure mother has scandalized waitstaff by describing the desired state for her soup as, "You might think it would hurt, but that's how I like it."
Does this run in families?
I feel this way about coffee too.

Alisa-Have not heard of the Horn of the Moon before. will check it out. Glad you liked the prunes. So far, I have not shared any of mine. Still have a few.