Name: Barley and Vegetable Soup
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 50 g fresh coriander; 10 g each of fennel leaf and dill weed; 2 small leeks with the darkest green removed; 60 g pearl barley; 100 g yellow or red swiss chard or spinach beet; 150 g cabbage; 100 g mallow leaves or a substitute such as baby spinach, pak choi, Chinese cabbage or any suitable green-leafed vegetable; 60 g red or brown lentils; 60 g green split peas; 60 g chickpeas; 2 heaped tsp fennel seed; 800 ml water; ½ tsp dried oregano; ½ level tsp lovage seed; generous freshly ground black pepper; 2 tbsp fish sauce

Preparation info

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Cooking Apicius

By Sally Grainger

Published 2006

About

This is a nourishing and warming soup, quite delicious and modern in its taste and texture. There is a long list of green vegetables required, though it is really unnecessary to stick rigidly to the list supplied in Apicius: the cook would have used whatever he was able to obtain, as we must do. I was testing the recipe in the winter and was rather limited in my choice. The original recipe calls for leek, coriander, green dill, green fennel leaf (you will find sufficient on 1 or 2 fe