Soothing chicken and pearl barley soup
This nourishing chicken soup is packed with soothing aromatics. The chicken is cooked on the bone for extra goodness and the pearl barley is gorgeously nutty.
Each serving provides 607 kcal, 67.5g protein, 15g carbohydrate (of which 1.3g sugars), 30.2g fat (of which 7.3g saturates), 2.3g fibre and 3.88g salt.
Ingredients
- 2 tbsp olive oil
- 1kg/2lb 4oz chicken legs and thighs, skin removed
- 3 large garlic cloves, finely chopped
- thumb-sized piece ginger, peeled and crushed
- 1 tsp cumin seeds
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 1 tsp ground turmeric (or 1 small piece of fresh turmeric, skinned and finely sliced)
- ½ tsp coarsely ground black pepper
- 175g/6oz pearl barley
- 1 litre/1¾ pint hot chicken stock made with stock cubes or just-boiled water
To serve
Method
Heat the olive oil in a large pan over a medium heat. Add the chicken pieces to the pot and fry them until they are light golden-brown on both sides – this takes 6–8 minutes.
Add the garlic, ginger, cumin seeds, bay leaf, turmeric and black pepper to the chicken. Add the stock or water and the pearl barley and bring to the boil.
Turn the heat down to medium–low and allow to simmer gently for an hour, stirring every so often. Leave the contents of the pan to cool enough to handle the chicken.
Carefully remove the chicken from the pan and take the meat off the bones, discarding the bones (beware of shredding too finely at this stage as the chicken will disintegrate a bit more on further heating).
Remove the bay leaf and return the chicken pieces to the pan.
Top up with around 300–500ml/10–18fl oz of water to make a soupy broth, then bring to the boil. Season with salt to taste.
Serve in bowls with a squeeze of lemon juice, sprinkle of herbs and optional chilli flakes.