I'm forever making soup with lentils and barley because they are super for you, inexpensive, taste good, and cook quickly. And you can marry them to a variety of herb and vegetable combinations to make healthy eating more interesting from day to day.
Sometimes it's sage and butternut squash, other times oregano and diced Italian tomatoes, or rosemary, bay leaf and parmesan rind with a pinch of cayenne or crushed red pepper flakes. Sometimes I'll leave out the barley, sometimes I'll use cooked leftover long grain brown rice instead. Soup is flexible.
In this recipe I use a little sweet Hungarian paprika with chopped rapini, otherwise known as broccoli rabe, a relative of the turnip family, a dark green leafy vegetable loaded with nutrition and a unique flavor.
When thinking soup, think three steps: the boil, the sweat, and the finish. The boil is where the "hard" cooking occurs, in which you avoid adding the more delicate ingredients which will suffer for the experience. The sweat is for softening the base vegetables like garlic, onion, carrot, and celery. In the finish, you add your herbs, spices and showcase ingredients to heat them through and simmer for a shorter period.
Lentil Barley Soup With Paprika and Rapini
3 quarts prepared Quick Chicken Stock
1 cup lentils, washed (French green lentils du Puy hold up best)
1 cup organic hulled barley, washed (use pearled barley if you must)
3 cloves garlic, pressed
1 large onion, diced
3 large carrots, peeled and diced
.5 cup extra virgin olive oil
2 t salt
.5 t black pepper
1 heaping teaspoon sweet Hungarian paprika
.5 cup tomato paste
4 oz. chopped rapini leaves and heads, washed
1. Add the lentils and barley to the chicken stock in a large stainless steel pot, bring to a boil, and bubble on the boil gently about one hour, until the barley is tooth tender.
2. Heat the oil over low heat in a heavy sauce pan, press the garlic, chop the onions and carrots, and saute these together, covered, over gentle heat, about ten to twenty minutes, stirring now and again, until the onions are translucent and the carrots softened. Let rest covered off the heat.
3. Wash and dry the rapini, accumulate 4 oz. of leaves and heads and chop up finely.
4. To the cooked lentils and barley, add the salt, pepper, paprika and tomato paste. Stir and adjust seasonings to your liking. Then add the onion and carrot mixture and stir. Bring to a boil and simmer for fifteen minutes, and then add the chopped rapini and simmer for ten minutes more.
It's a pretty soup to serve, with little green, orange and white colors bobbing in a reddish brown sea. Perfect for today's blizzard in Michigan.
