Recipe Wild Mushroom, Barley & Celeriac Soup

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

This is a soup that surprised us both with how much the flavour matured overnight and improved in depth.

It is also one of those soups that looks brown, in a brown broth with brown mushrooms and brown barley... aka comfort food, not photogenic food.

Servings: 6
Ingredients
30g dried wood mushrooms, soaked in 500ml boiling water
2tbsp olive oil
2 medium leeks, washed and roughly chopped
400g celeriac, peeled and 1cm dice
5-6 garlic cloves, minced
leaves from several sprigs fresh thyme
2 bay leaves (if fresh crush then slightly)
100ml sherry
100g pearl barley
1 litres vegetable stock
½kg field mushrooms, roughly sliced/chopped into big chunks
2tbsp shiro 50% reduced sodium miso
1 tbsp tamari
salt and pepper
1 handful chopped fresh parsley

Method

1. Soak the dried wild mushrooms in 500ml boiling water for about half an hour ahead of time. Drain, retaining liquid and mushrooms. Allow the liquid to stand for grit/dirt to settle, and roughly chop the soaked mushrooms.
2. Heat the oil in a large pan. Add the leeks, celeriac, garlic and thyme and cook over medium heat for 5 minutes. Add the bay leaves, sherry and barley and cook for 5 minutes more.
3. Add the soaked wild mushrooms, plus their stock (taking care to leave grit in bottom of jug) along with the vegetable stock to the pan, bring to the boil, lower the heat and simmer for 30 minutes or until or the pearl barley is soft.
4. Add the mushrooms according their toughness (tougher ones first) and cook until all the mushrooms are tender. Depending on what sort of mushrooms you are using, this could take up to 15 minutes. Stir in the miso and the tamari at the end of the cooking.
5. Stir in the chopped parsley just before serving.

ETA: reference. Soup based on one by the same name in Denis Cotter's "Wild Garlic, Gooseberries and me". In times gone by, we used to visit his vegetarian cafe in Cork, Ireland going back to the turn of the millennium! Most of his cookbooks we have are signed editions bought directly from the cafe.

 

[The Late Night Gourmet]

I really like the look of this: even though it's all vegetables, and none with any starch to speak of, it looks hearty.

 

[SatNavSaysStraightOn]

I really like the look of this: even though it's all vegetables, and none with any starch to speak of, it looks hearty.

The carbs come from the barley which is 75% carbohydrates.