Brown Lentil, Barley and Mushroom Soup
Adapted from a soup recipe in ‘Pressure Cooking The Easy Way: Healthy One-Pot Meals Everyone Will Love’ by Maureen B. Keane and Daniella Chase, Prima Publishing, 1997. This uses the common gray-brown lentils available in most food stores. You can make the soup by simmering in a pot, but I prefer the speed of a pressure cooker.
Ingredients:
1 tbsp olive or canola oil
several garlic cloves, peeled and chopped, or 1 tbsp bottled minced garlic
1 medium onion, chopped into about half-inch pieces
2-3 carrots, peeled and chopped into half-inch pieces
2-3 stalks celery, washed off and chopped into half-inch pieces
1 tsp dried thyme
1/4 tsp pepper
1/2 tsp powdered curry
1 quart of low sodium beef, chicken or vegetable broth (or you can use the leftover broth
from a pot roast with added water and 1 tsp beef bouillon to make up a quart)
2 strips of orange peel, about 1 inch wide
1 cup (about 1/2 pound) of dry brown lentils
1/2 cup of pearl barley
1 bay leaf
4-6 white mushrooms, washed and sliced or chopped into about half-inch pieces
Heat oil in pressure cooker, add chopped garlic and onions and cook over medium heat, stirring, until onions are soft.
Add chopped carrots and celery, cook until onions are just beginning to brown a little (caramelized, which gives a deeper, sweeter flavor).
Add thyme, pepper, and curry, stir for about 30 seconds to release flavors.
Add broth, stir, scraping bottom of cooker to make sure nothing is stuck.
Add orange peel, dried lentils, barley, and bay leaf, stir again, making sure all is well mixed and nothing is stuck up on the sides of the cooker (as the onion bits tend to do).
Put on pressure cooker lid, keep on medium heat until 15 lbs of pressure is indicated.
Turndown heat slightly, and cook at high pressure for 15 minutes.
Move the pressure cooker off the burner and let pressure fall on its own.
When pressure is down, take lid off and stir soup (it will be thick). Add chopped mushrooms, stir, and cook with top off on medium heat for another 10 minutes or so until mushrooms are soft.
Take cooker off heat, stir, and ladle soup into serving bowls.
4 servings, or for 2 with leftover soup to freeze or to refrigerate to use later in the week. Soup thickens on standing, so can add more broth or water when reheating.