Soups of the World - Graupensuppe

This vegetable barley soup is a traditional German recipe. Pearl barley is an ingredient I'm unfamiliar with but now I have a whole bag of it I'll have to find some other recipes to use it in.

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons butter
1 onion
1 cup pearl barley
1 potato
2 carrots
2 sticks celery
1 leek
2 German sausages (I used bratwurst)
Small piece of bacon (I used lardons instead)
4 cups vegetable stock
Nutmeg
Salt & pepper

Melt the butter in a pan and saute the chopped onion.

Next chop up the other vegetables. Cut them up into quite small cubes. I'm not sure there's anything as dull as carefully chopping up vegetables this way. :D

 Add the pearl barley to the pan and stir while it lightly toasts.

 After about 5 minutes add the stock, vegetables, bacon and sausages.

Simmer for 30 minutes until the sausages are cooked through and the soup liquid has reduced. Slice the sausages and season the soup with nutmeg, salt & pepper.

This soup was a really hearty vegetable soup at it's base with extra flavour and texture from the bacon and sausages. Pearl barley gives a lovely comforting thickness to the soup. It's nice to see how it puffs up from it's grain form into a nice chewy addition to the bowl. I enjoyed this one.