Mushroom Onion Barley Soup
- Tracy Scheckel
- Sep 10
- 2 min read
This is a simple mushroom barley soup recipe that's sure to please. Not unlike many other of my recipes, this was sort of experimental in that I had mushrooms I needed to use, and that was basically the inspiration for what followed.
I have made many a traditional mushroom soup where you puree some of the cooked mushrooms and add some cream and maybe some dill for a yummy creamy cream of mushroom soup. When I made this concoction, although it was a dry cool-ish August day, it just wasn't cool or autumnal enough to warrant a rich creamy soup, so I decided on a clear broth.
I decided that a base of slowly caramelized onions was where I'd start. While the onions were slowly caramelizing, I noticed some grape tomatoes that also needed to be used sooner rather than later. They got added once the onions reached the golden color I was after. Then I cranked up the heat a bit to blister and pop the tomatoes and simmer until they got jammy. Then to deglaze the pot a bit, I added some cream sherry and finally some of the stock I've been making from unused vegetable trimmings and scraps.
I like some kind of starch in most of my soups and decided on barley for this adventure down the rabbit hole. I like pearl barley and not the instant stuff, so it takes some forethought as I like to soak it and rinse it a couple of times and then I boil it separately from the soup for 30 minutes or so before adding to the soup for another 10 minutes of boil time.
This was great served with a spinach, tomato, and smoked mozzarella stuffed bread. (Recipe coming soon).
THE RECIPE:
4T butter
1/2 t salt
2C chopped onion
2C (about 30) whole grape tomatoes
1/2C cream sherry
3C sliced mushrooms
4C vegetable broth
1C barley
4C salted water to cook barley
salt / pepper to taste
In a large stock pot, melt the butter and sprinkle with the 1/2 teaspoon of salt.
Add the chopped onions, set heat to as lo as it goes and cover the pot.
Allow the onions to sweat and slowly caramelize and try to avoid lifting the pot lid. I actually have a glass top for the stock pot I use so it's easy to see the progress without letting out the precious steam.
Cook the barley while the onions are caramelizing and drain after 30 minutes of boiling. Set aside to add to the soup later.
Once the onions are a light golden color add the tomatoes and crank up the heat to accelerate the blistering process. Stay close by stirring occasionally and try to avoid things burning.-- it's OK if things stick a bit.
Turn off the heat and pour the sherry in and then turn the heat back on to low and let the alcohol simmer out.
Add the broth and mushrooms and cook until the mushrooms are tender and the broth is a nice rich color.
10 minutes before you're ready to serve the soup, bring it to a boil and add the barley to finish cooking.
