Thai Vegetable Soup. With Pearl Barley.

Pearl Barley is such an under used staple.  It is cheap as chips, so easy to cook and pretty nutritious.  Being keen to incorporate it in our diet I've come up with this delicious veggie Thai soup.

It is super filling so will happily work as a dinner in itself.  Plus is one of those fab recipes where you throw everything in a pan and let it do it's thing while you can pour a glass of wine and get on with your life.

Ingredients

2 tbsp olive oil
2 carrots, peeled and finely chopped
230 g shallots, peeled and quartered
3 fat garlic cloves, finely chopped
50 g mushrooms, quartered
a large knob of fresh ginger, peeled and finely grated
very large bunch of coriander, stems finely chopped
1 can chopped tomatoes
1 tbsp tomato puree
500 ml stock
100 g pearl barley
1 raw beetroot, grated
100 g beetroot leaves finely sliced
1 green chilli, deseeded and finely chopped
4 spring onions, finely sliced
1 tin coconut milk, reduced fat is fine
Salt and black pepper


Method

1. Heat the oil in a large saucepan over a moderate heat.  Add the garlic and shallots, cook stirring for 5 minutes.
2. Add the carrots, ginger, mushrooms, coriander stems, chili and spring onions, cook for 3 minutes.

3. Add the remaining ingredients except the coriander leaves.

Bring to the boil and then simmer for 30 minutes, or until the pearl barley is cooked.

Serve hot garnished with the coriander leaves.  Seriously delicious and fragrant.