Beef and vegetable soup

A hearty soup is a great dish for Autumn. This is a variation on a recipe for a clear beef soup with kale, principally because there was no kale available on the market. After making the broth, I was supposed to dispose of the beef. Instead, I used it for another preparation.

The recipe can be made in stages. First you make the broth, then you cook the vegetables and then you can reheat it and adjust the taste before serving. It reminded me of the calda verde of Portugal. As cabbage can have a boring taste, you can spice it up with peppers of chillies.

Ingredients

• Some green cabbage leaves (or a quarter kale)
• Three carrots
• Three turnips
• A tin of lentils
• A table spoon of chopped parsley
• One onion
• 60 grammes of pearl barley
• Half a kilo of beef shank
• Marrow bone
• Salt and pepper
• Piment d’Espelette (Basque pepper)

Steps

1. Put the barley in water to swell, rinse and set aside in fresh water for several hours.
2. Cut the beef in large cubes. Put it with the marrow bone in a large pan and cover with three litres of cold water.
3. Turn on the heat and scoop up impurities as they float to the surface. Cook slowly for three hours. Strain the stock through a filter (cloth or paper towel).
4. Discard the beef and bone (or use for another purpose).
5. If you set the stock aside to cool down overnight it is easier to remove any remaining fat the following day as it will have set on the surface.
6. Peel the onions, carrots, turnips and cut up into small cubes.
7. Chop the parsley.
8. Tear off several leaves from the cabbage, rinse, remove the stem and slice into ribbons.
9. Open the tin of lentils.
10. Pass the barley in its liquid through a sieve.
11. Put the stock in a pan and heat it up, add a table spoon of salt and add the vegetables and the barley, stir and cook slowly for at least half an hour.
12. Add several twists of the pepper mill, the lentils and the parsley and cook for another 10 minutes. Either stop here and continue later or bring towards the boil, add the piment, taste and serve hot.