This is one of those soups that I make almost every year when winter starts to come on. There are normally a couple of variations when I make it but consistently it's a thick barley soup with chunks of crunchy vegetables, seared mushrooms, and chicken pieces that have been marinated and cooked separately. The underlying flavor in every bite is the rich dark chicken broth that everything is cooked in, as well as the lightly toasted flavor of the barley.
There are essentially 3 steps to this soup, though you can skip one of the steps if you want to purchase a precooked chicken at the store. The broth essentially carries this, so the first step is to make/fortify your chicken broth. If you buy a precooked chicken, or are cooking your own, you want to remove the bones from the carcass to make the broth base. Use the bones and put them in a pot with some aromatics (peppercorns, bay leaves, etc), some dehydrated mushrooms, the stems from the mushrooms you are using, a splash or two of soy sauce, and some mirepoix vegetables (carrots, onion, and celery). If you have any scraps in your freezer you can also throw those in. Bring the broth to a boil and drop it to a simmer for about 2 hours. When done strain everything through a colander and reserve the re-hydrated mushrooms (as well as chicken pieces if you added them) to put them into your soup.
You can change the ingredients to fit your tastes, though keeping the base of carrots, mushrooms, and onions are a solid foundation. I used oysters, creminis, and button mushrooms for this, though you can change the types as well depending on what's available. I cleaned all the mushrooms the day before, and roasted the chicken earlier as well. I'll add the roasted chicken recipe I used as it comes out really well, though a touch on the time consuming side for one chicken. I started the broth before I actually started the soup, so that I would have everything ready when I was ready to make the soup.
The benefit of using a whole chicken is that you fortify the stock you are using to get that rich flavor. You can use chicken meat, but you would want to marinate the meat, and sear the chicken prior to the mushrooms. You would also want to fortify your purchased chicken stock with more mushroom stems, chicken flavor, and spices. I pulled some frozen scraps, some frozen tenders, and the bones from the chicken I had roasted (though removing the majority of skin to reduce fat), and used some dehydrated shitakes to fortify the broth on this.
Ingredients
Roasted Chicken, thigh and breast 1/2 ea
Mushrooms, various, stemmed & cut 2 lb
Barley* 1 1/2 cups
Garlic, peeled, whole cloves 1 head
Onion, diced 2 ea
Carrots, small cut 3 ea
Celery stalks, small cut 3 ea
Bay Leaves 3-4
Thyme, fresh 1-2 oz
Sage, fresh 4 whole leaves
Oregano, fresh 1-2 oz
Black Peppercorns, whole 1 T
Crushed Red Pepper 1 tsp
Chicken Broth 4 qt
Cooking Sherry 1/4 cup
Sherry Vinegar 1 T
Dijon Mustard 1 T
Garlic Oil 1/4 cup
Soy Sauce 1/4 cup
Salt and Pepper to taste
Garnish
Chives or parsley, or some green herbs
Method of Procedure
Take your bay leaves, thyme, sage, oregano, black peppercorns, and crushed red pepper, then tie them up in a some cheese cloth (bouquet garni) for the soup.
Heat your soup pot up put your garlic oil in the pan. Put your mushrooms into the pot and cook on high while stirring to get color (go in small batches if you don't have a large enough pot).
Add your whole garlic cloves, your bouquet garni, and diced onions, then continue to cook until softened.
Add your barley* and cook on medium high heat for about 10 minutes while stirring to partially toast the barley before you add anything else.
Put in your cooking sherry and stir to de-glaze, then add sherry vinegar, Dijon mustard, avenue spice, and soy sauce, and stir again.
Add your diced chicken, your fortified chicken broth, and if needed a little water, then bring to a boil. Reduce to a simmer and cook for 1 hour.
Add your diced carrots and celery and continue to cook for another hour.
Season to taste and serve.
*If you want a thinner end product use 3/4 cups barley
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