This is a soup, it's a real heartwarmer it's such good comfort food. I'm making a soup like
a minestrone, it's a pearl barley soup, loads of veg and it's proper comfort food. So this is
something you can make in a big pan, you can do a batch of it so you can cook for a load of people
or make it once and have a meal that you can reheat again in the week so it's a cracker. Get
yourself a big pan, first up chorizo, 150 grams is all I need. Run your knife through the sausage,
you can have some big bits and some fine bits, there's so much love gone into this already
spices, sweetness, peppers. A little touch of nice olive oil to the pan, add this chorizo,
it smells incredible already. We're gonna get loads of veg into this soup so 2 onions, just
kind of roughly chopped. So in with the onion and then we'll kind of just keep chopping and adding,
chopping and adding, and over the course of sort of 10 minutes this will be the most tasty base.
2 carrots, cut them up any way you like just get them fine-ish, and then celery. Celery is a funny
one, it doesn't crack jokes or anything like that, but people think that it doesn't do anything but
what it does is it gives a fantastic base. We'll get 2 sticks in there as well. I'm also going to
add some herbs so 2 bay leaves, dried or fresh. And then the whole thing of this is just to invest
about 10 minutes in stirring and slow cooking this lovely base. Concentrating the flavors, it's going
to be so much tastier. There's another ingredient I want to show you instead of pasta that I think
is a brilliant healthy swap, right, and this is pearl barley you can do all kinds of stuff with it
you can use it to bulk out things like soups and stews, it's really delicious it's very nutritious,
so it's kind of like veg, goodness, it's this is what we want we want healthy,
clever swaps. 200 grams goes in. Just stir that in and let it soak up all the flavour.
What I can do now is add some tinned tomatoes. Try and get the whole tomatoes right, it makes all the
difference. Break up those tomatoes with a spoon you don't want big chunks in there. It smells
so good - wowzers! So you want about 1.8 litres of stock veggie, chicken, or even water's fine.
Like I said earlier we're batch cooking right so we're doing a nice big batch, this will be enough
for 8 - 10 people. So lid on and once it's come to the boil turn it down to a medium heat, let
that simmer for 40 minutes to cook the barley and then I'll show you what to do next. So it's had
40 minutes it smells incredible and there's one last ingredient that I want to put in here which
is cabbage. The cabbage family you can choose any cabbage you like. Kale I really like at the
moment so a nice wadge of that kale goes in. Any of the cabbage family is super super good for you,
with all these flavours it's going to taste so so good. This is supposed to be a thick comforting
soup but really you should adjust the consistency so you like it okay, so I'll add a little bit more
water but one of the things I like to do which is optional by the way is if you want a little bit of
kind of silkiness just use a little hand blender. You don't have to do it but it's quite nice to do
in just one corner right just to make it a puree, and then fold it through all the chunks so you
get the best of both worlds from brothy, chunky, and sort of silky. So lid on top, turn that down,
5 more minutes and then I'll serve it. Here we are lovely people a really gorgeous humble
delicious thing. Really important actually let's taste and season to perfection.
Mm! Oh my god.
Wow. Delicious, big, juicy, comforting flavour, wow. It only needs a tiny bit of salt and a little
pepper and that my friends is a mighty mighty soup. You could serve that with some bread
but it doesn't really need it. Lunch, dinner, a little pick-me-up, that is a beautiful beautiful
dish that's going to put smiles on people's faces, let's have a little try.
Oh my lord, wow. Big flavour, it's smoky, it's sweet, it's really comforting - makes
you feel really good. I just love it. So I really want you to try this soup guys,
have a go at making a batch and you know what, the healthy swaps,
genius. Pearl barley, get a pack. So guys it's quick, it's easy, it's healthy.
What are you waiting for? It's so blooming tasty.