Tuscan Barley & Bean Soup

I must confess that I am not a lover of soups by nature – meaning that if I have the choice, I won’t normally opt for a soup. Unless one of these four soups is on the menu – sour and spicy Indian Rasam or Thai Tom-Yum, cold and refreshing Spanish Gazpacho (summer in a bowl!) and this soup here, which hails from the magical yet relatively unknown city of Lucca in Italy. Before you dismiss it as a boring bean soup, I should add that it’s the variety of herbs used and most of all the texture -the chewy barley juxtaposed with the velvety pureed beans- that make all the difference. Perfect winter food – highly nutritious, filling and most importantly, delicious. Try it and let me know what you think!

PS: Remember, if you want to make this, you will need to have soaked the beans from the night before.

Serves 4

Ingredients

2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil (and more for serving)
1 brown onion, finely chopped
1 large carrot, finely chopped
1 stick celery, finely chopped
2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
5 fresh sage leaves (Or use 1tsp dried sage if you can’t find fresh. In Athens I have sometimes resorted to sage teabags -a traditional Greek tisane-, as they are the easiest to source – I just cut them open and sprinkle the contents in the pot)

1 heaped tbsp finely chopped fresh parsley
Half a 400gr can chopped tomatoes (Mutti is by far the best brand if you can find it)
200gr dried borlotti or cannellini beans, which have been soaked in a big bowl of water overnight
200gr barley, rinsed under cold water
2 sprigs rosemary

Instructions

Boil the soaked beans in a medium pot of water for 1 hour, or until soft. Drain the beans in a colander.

In the same pot (now empty), fry the chopped onion, carrot, celery and garlic in the olive oil until glassy and soft. Now add the rest of the ingredients, minus the barley and rosemary. Add the cooked beans and 2 cups of water. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Simmer for 10 minutes. Let it cool down and blend in a multi-blender (I have found a multi-blender with a glass bowl, but most blender bowls are plastic, so for health reasons one should avoid placing hot food in plastic as the plastic then leaches into the food).

Place the bean and vegetable puree back into the empty pot. Add the barley, rosemary sprigs and 4 cups of water. Cook until the barley is tender but still slightly chewy – it can take anything from 25 minutes to an hour depending on whether your barley is pearled or hulled (pearled is fastest, but I prefer hulled as it’s wholegrain, so it’s nuttier and chewier as well as more nutritious – win win).

Take the rosemary stalks out of the soup (by now the leaves will have separated from the stalks) and plate the soup. Drizzle a little extra virgin olive oil on each bowl, and if you fancy dunking some bread in, I recommend a robust crusty sourdough.

JOHANNA GOYAL