Comments on: beef, leek and barley soup

By: Lena

Lena — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:34:24 +0000

I am making this right now…. waiting for it to come up to a simmer. For mine I added carrots, lil bit of Thyme, and will add me some fried leeks as garnish… with some toasted Pugliese! Can’t wait! Will let you know how it turns out! :)

By: Karen

Karen — Mon, 15 Feb 2010 17:12:08 +0000

Made this yesterday while I was watching the Olympics. My hubby and I are big soup people. I make soup at least 2 times per week this time of year. This will definately be part of my regular rotation. So delicious, so easy! It was perfect with a loaf of home-made whole wheat bread and a salad of greens, apples, walnuts, blue cheese and balsamic vinegrette. Looking forward to having the leftover soup for lunch today.

By: Nicole

Nicole — Thu, 11 Feb 2010 02:14:08 +0000

It’s the “blizzard of 2010″ in NYC and a perfect day for this soup. I made it at 11:30 this morning and basically left it cooking all day. I left it covered for the first two hours and then uncovered for another two hours. The last two hours I kept switching it on/off. The end result was extremely tender short ribs, a slightly creamy soup (due to the barley) and an overall amazing taste. My husband, who is the real cook in the family and who always has some sort of “constructive criticism” when I cook :), said it was perfect and didn’t need a thing! Now that is a miracle coming from him. I followed the recipie as is, using all beef stock, no water. I also added one extra short rib, carrots and mushrooms. It was amazing!!! For dessert we had mom’s apple cake, which was also delicious! I will definitely be making both again soon. I just need another snow day so I am trapped inside :)

By: Angela

Angela — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 01:15:31 +0000

I had leftover roasted short ribs from dinner out. I just used sauted leeks and water and salt. I added a drop of milk before eating, taken from a very very similar Korean soup. The Korean soup by the way, has white rice on the bottom of the bowl. topped with fresh scallions.

By: SarahB

SarahB — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 23:58:17 +0000

I am just blown away by how a few simple ingredients can taste so good. I think that next time I will omit the barley, remove the meat at the end and then puree the remaining soup, then add quick cooking barley and the reserved meat and simmer another 1/2 hour. That would take care of the sort of chunky slimy appearance that my seven-year-old is flipping out over, and I think it’d be really silky with the pureed leeks and then the nice bite of the barley would keep the texture interesting. Thanks Deb!

By: Amy

Amy — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 11:44:30 +0000

Hi Deb… Big freeze on in the UK and 3rd day of being stranded at home… so came to your web site looking for some warming recipes. Magically I happened to have ALL the ingredients at home to make this soup! Its bubbling away on the stove right now and will be baking a loaf of bread to go with it. Sure to blow away the winter blues!!!

By: Jo

Jo — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 02:16:23 +0000

This soup is so good! I used Oxtails instead of the short ribs and it was wonderful!

By: deb

deb — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 16:01:18 +0000

I’m a big, big fan of Better Than Bouillon (that is, if I have no homemade accessible). I think it has the best flavor, a good price, and is space-efficient (as it’s no fun to lug home liquid quarts of stock). By the way, I am always shocked by the amount of “beef” stocks at stores (Whole Foods especially!) that contain no beef stock, but are just “beef-flavored” when you look closer. I was very disappointed the day I brought one home accidentally.

By: KimP

KimP — Thu, 17 Dec 2009 15:29:32 +0000

I made this soup last night, following the recipe, and it came out great! The smell of my house during the cooking made my mouth absolutely water. I did find that it was just a tad sweet because of all the leeks, so next time I’ll probably add some spices – thyme? bay leaf? any suggestions?

Just curious Deb – what beef stock do you use? I don’t cook with it often, but I’m assuming the flavor can vary widely depending on which brand is used, like it does with chicken stock. I ended up using 365 brand – but if there’s something better out there I’d love to know!

By: Jeri Lynn

Jeri Lynn — Fri, 11 Dec 2009 06:33:42 +0000

This totally hit the spot tonight! I was in the mood for soup but didn’t want fussy chopping (thin carrot coins can be SUCH a pain!). This great recipe is SO getting made again! I followed a suggestion and added a bit of salt at the beginning. The soup didn’t need it, though, since my stock was already a bit salty. If I was using water instead of stock, I’d probably want a bit of extra salt. Thanks again!