Colder weather brings a bounty of seasonal root vegetables, and there is no better time of the year to make a warming vat of soup. This low-waste recipe manages to be both fancy and homely. Carrots and parsnips are a must, but you can swap the swede for celeriac, turnips or kohlrabi
Sarah, a former food editor, has now been writing and styling recipes for over 10 years. Born in NZ, to Irish-English immigrants, and married to a Polish-Scot, her food is as diverse as her family, with a particular passion for baking mash-ups.
See more of Sarah Cook’s recipes
Sarah Cook
Sarah, a former food editor, has now been writing and styling recipes for over 10 years. Born in NZ, to Irish-English immigrants, and married to a Polish-Scot, her food is as diverse as her family, with a particular passion for baking mash-ups.
See more of Sarah Cook’s recipes
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Ingredients
3 onions, unpeeled
2 medium potatoes (about 500g)
1 large garlic bulb, left whole and unpeeled
400g bunched carrots with leafy tops
3 fat parsnips (about 650g)
½ medium swede (about 350-400g)
2 vegetable stock cubes
125g pearl barley, rinsed
4 tbsp rapeseed oil
3 bay leaves
whole nutmeg, to grate
¼ tsp ground mace
1 tbsp clear honey
double cream, optional, to serve (omit for dairy free)
For the carrot-top pesto
85g pumpkin seeds
washed carrot tops from the bunch,
juice of 1 lemon
6 tbsp rapeseed (or extra-virgin olive) oil
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Get ahead
Freeze the soup for up to 3 months, or keep chilled and eat over 3-4 days. The pesto will sit happily in the fridge for a week.
Preheat the oven to 200°C, fan 180°C, gas 6. Roughly line a very large roasting tin with baking paper. Add the onions, potatoes and garlic and bake for 40 minutes. While the whole veg are cooking, prepare the rest. Peel the carrots (reserving the leafy tops), parsnips and swede, then cut the swede into small chunks, the carrots slightly bigger and the parsnips about double the size of the swede chunks.
Put the stock cubes in a pan with 2 litres of water and the barley. Bring to the boil, cover with a lid, then cook for 25-30 minutes until the barley is tender. Strain into a colander over another large pan to catch the stock and set the barley aside.
When the whole veg have cooked for 40 minutes, remove the garlic from the tin and push the onions and potatoes to one side. Tip in all of the diced root vegetables with the rapeseed oil and bay leaves, toss thoroughly with seasoning and then return to the oven for another 30 minutes until the vegetables are golden, caramelising on the edges and almost tender.
Scoop the soft onion and potato flesh straight from their skins into the stock pan, then tip in the rest of the roasted veg chunks (and bay). Add some nutmeg, the mace, honey and another 1 litre of water. Squeeze in the soft roasted garlic from half of the cloves, then bring everything to a simmer and cook for 10 minutes. Leave to cool for 10 minutes, then discard the bay and use a stick blender or regular blender to whiz to a smooth soup. Stir in the cooked barley and season well.
For the carrot-top pesto, toast the pumpkin seeds in a dry pan until they begin to pop and split. Set aside to cool. Pick the best leaves from the carrot tops, aiming for about three-quarters of the bunch. Put these, 35g of the toasted seeds, half each of the lemon juice and oil into a blender or mini processor. Squeeze in the rest of the roasted garlic flesh and pulse to a pesto consistency. Stir in the rest of the oil, plenty of salt, then enough of the remaining lemon juice to taste.
Ladle the hot soup into bowls, topping with a good swirl of the pesto, a sprinkle of the reserved pumpkin seeds and a swirl of cream, if you like.
Serve with
Cider and sweet onion wreath loaf Plain and simple loaf
Do you cook barley before adding it to soup? Your beef barley soup will simmer long enough to cook the barley. There is no need for the additional step of cooking the barley first. The barley takes about 30 minutes to cook completely.
Barley is high in fiber, especially beta-glucan, which may reduce cholesterol and blood sugar levels. It may also aid weight loss and improve digestion. Whole-grain, hulled barley is more nutritious than refined, pearled barley. It can be substituted for any whole grain and easily added to your diet.
A lot of the flavour in this roasted vegetable soup comes from roasting the veggies. Sure, you could simply boil/simmer the ingredients. However, you'd miss out on the flavours of the caramelised veggies. They also gain a delightful smoky taste from roasting, which makes this roast veg soup even more tasty.
Barley does not need to be soaked before cooking, however, it is a good idea to rinse the grains. This removes any dirt or extra starch that is on the grain.
Do you have to soak barley before cooking? Pearl barley does not need to be soaked prior to cooking because it cooks quickly. Hulled barley benefits from soaking in water for a few hours before cooking. However, you should still budget more time for the hulled grain to cook (about 35 to 40 minutes).
Depending on what you're looking for in your diet, they certainly stack up differently, but in most cases, barley beats oatmeal to the nutrition punch. Besides helping make you feel full, fiber keeps you regular and helps maintain the health of your GI (gastrointestinal) tract.
Many of barley's health benefits come from it being an excellent source of dietary fiber. Fiber is essential for keeping the digestive system healthy, contributing to healthy bowel movements, and helping people avoid problems such as constipation.
In the event that your goal is to keep moisture in—like when your pot of soup, stew, or sauce is already at the right consistency, but you want to keep cooking the vegetables and melding the flavors—leave the lid on to keep any more liquid from evaporating.
Research suggests that boiling broccoli, for example, may result in up to a 50 percent loss of vitamin C. This is because vitamin C, as well as other vitamins, like B vitamins, are water-soluble. The answer is to use less water or use a different cooking method, like roasting or steaming.
It may sound a bit strange and unusual for some, but vinegar is a common ingredient in some soup recipes, and there is a good reason for it. If you think about it, vinegar is really a flavor-enhancer (umami). That's why it is so often used in cooking, sauces, and salad dressings. The same is true with soups.
Put a tablespoon of either into a small bowl and stir in 2-3 tbsp of the soup until you have a smooth mixture. Stir this back into the soup and bring it to a simmer. Cook for a few minutes to allow the starch granules to burst to thicken, and to cook out any flour flavour.
You should not need to precook the pearl barley as pearl barley usually needs 30-40 minutes of cooking to soften. In addition, the starches from the barley help to slightly thicken the stock. Pearl barley has been hulled and then polished to remove the bran, so it cooks quickly.
Since the barley can absorb too much of the liquid when made ahead, and get mushy, I find it best to cook the barley separately. Make as directed, just omitting the barley.
Products high in starch also interfere with heat processing. -- Avoid using noodles, alphabet noodles, spaghetti, or other pasta, rice, barley, etc to canned soups.
Barley's fiber content helps prevent constipation and promote regularity for a healthy digestive tract. Eating fiber-rich foods such as barley may also contribute to weight loss. This is because it functions as a “bulking agent” in the digestive system, making a person feel fuller for longer.
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Prep time: 50 mins
