Tasty Thursday - Beef Barley Soup
It's getting to be Sweater Weather here. For us, that also means soup or stew season.
I came across this recipe and we made it that night. Amazing. Usually it takes a while to make a recipe that I find. But Chris had mentioned having soup for dinner. We also can't buy soup in a can. They just aren't as good as homemade. My family is spoiled.
Beef barley is a good hearty soup and it great when it's gold and snowy outside. Chris had found a recipe that called for soy sauce. That one kind of seemed off kilter for me. I wanted a good classic recipe and found this one.
Beef Barley Soup
1 pound stewing beef
1 teaspoon salt or to taste
1 teaspoon pepper or to taste
½ cup all-purpose flour
2 tablespoon olive oil or more if needed
1 large onion chopped
1 large carrot peeled and chopped
2 stalks celery cleaned and chopped
3 cloves garlic minced
1 tablespoon oregano fresh, chopped (or 1 tsp dried oregano)
3 tablespoon tomato paste
4 cups beef broth low sodium
3 cups water
¾ cup barley I used pearl barley, see notes
1 tablespoon parsley fresh, chopped
Prep the Beef: Season the stewing beef generously with salt and pepper. Place the beef in a ziploc bag and add the flour over the beef. Close the ziploc bag and shake until each piece of beef is fully covered in flour. You can also do this in a bowl.
Sear the Beef: Heat the olive oil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Add the beef to the pot and cook just until the meat starts to brown about 3 minutes per side. You will have to do this in 2 or 3 batches, since you do not want to crowd the meat. Remove the meat from the pot after you're done and set aside.
Cook the Mirepoix: In the same pot, you will have a lot of brown bits on the bottom. Add more olive oil if needed, then add the chopped onion, carrots and celery. Cook the vegetables until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
Season and Cook the Beef: Add the garlic, oregano and tomato paste to the pot and stir. Cook for 30 seconds until aromatic. Add a bit of the beef broth to the pot to deglaze all the brown bits at the bottom. Add the meat back to the pot, then the beef broth and water and season with salt and pepper. Bring to a boil, then turn down the heat to a medium, cover the pot and cook for about 30 to 45 minutes, stirring occasionally. You want to cook this for so long so that the beef becomes tender, it will melt in your mouth.
Add Barley and Cook: Add the barley to the pot, cover it and cook for another 30 minutes or until the barley is cooked through. Make sure you stir occasionally so the barley won't stick. If you find that the soup is too thick add more water as necessary until you get the desired consistency, though this is quite a thick soup.
Finish and Serve: Remove the soup from heat and garnish with fresh parsley before serving.
I would definately add more pepper. It lacked that, and maybe mix the low sodium broth with regular. I never say that, but it needed just a little bit more flavor and both of those definately helped.
If you have leftovers, you may need to add more beef broth or water. The next day, it was really thick, more of a stew consistency than soup.
You can see the original recipe here... jocooks.com
This soup really hit the spot for both of us.
Until next time...Stampin' Always,
Cheryl, HomeStyle Stamper
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