Zuppa di orzo (Italian Barley Soup)

Frank3 February 2018Fall, pastas, soups and risottos/primi piatti, Soups, Winter58 Comments

Italian cuisine is known for pasta, gnocchi, risotto and polenta. More recently many people have come to know farro. But did you know that Italians also enjoy barley? Here is a simple, basic Italian Barley Soup—zuppa di orzo— that is both healthy, appetizing and, if made in a pressure cooker, quickly prepared.

Zuppa di orzo hails from the Trentino-Alto Adige, an autonomous region in northeastern Italy once part of Austria—and its cuisine reflects that history. The soup gets its special character from Speck, a cured, smoked pork product. That smoked flavor is not one that you usually associate with Italian cookery, but you can find it in this part of Italy. But leave it out—and perhaps add some cooked beans—and you’ll have a perfectly delicious and hearty vegan/vegetarian soup.

Ingredients

Makes 4-6 servings

For the soffritto:

1 medium onion, finely diced
2 stalks of celery, finely diced
2 small or 1 medium carrot, finely diced
75g (2-1/2 oz) Speck (or smoked pancetta or bacon, see Notes), cut into small dice
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

For the soup:

200g (8 oz) pearl barley
1.5 liters (5 or 6 cups) water or broth, plus more water as needed

Directions

Begin by making the soffritto, or flavor base: Sauté the onion, carrot, celery in olive oil, seasoning with salt and pepper and taking care not to let them brown. When the vegetables have softened, add the Speck and let it sauté for a minute or two.

Then add the barley to the soffritto and let it sauté for a minute or two as well.

Add water or broth to cover generously. Simmer covered for 45 minutes or until the barley is tender, stirring from time to time and adding water or broth as needed to reach the consistency you want. (NB: Barley absorbs a lot of liquid as it cooks, so do check it from time to time to avoid scorching.) The soup can be served quite thick, like a porridge, or fairly brothy as you prefer.

Serve right away. If you like you can sprinkle it with parsley for color. Have some grated Parmesan cheese on the side for those who like it.

Notes on Zuppa di orzo (Italian Barley Soup)

Pearled barley is the variety used traditionally for this soup. If you prefer to opt for hulled barley, you’ll need to extend the cooking time a bit, to an hour or perhaps more.

Beef broth is the best choice for making Italian barley soup, in my opinion, but it is perfectly lovely with vegetable broth or even just water. Chicken broth, on the other hand, while a possible choice, in my opinion does not really pair very well with barley. Some recipes call for rinsing the barley beforehand or even soaking it for a few hours to soften it. I find this step entirely unnecessary, at least with the barley sold here in the US.

If using a pressure cooker, bring up to pressure, lower the heat to a minimum and cook for 15 minutes, then release the pressure. When you open the cooker, check for liquid: if the barley has entirely absorbed it, add more water or broth and let things simmer for a few minutes more. If there is too much liquid (less likely, given barley’s aborptive qualities) then just let is simmer until you have reached the proper consistency.

Zuppa di orzo can be made ahead. Many people, in fact, find it’s better the day after you make it. The character of the soup will change, however. Freshly made barley soup, given enough liquid, will remain fairly brothy and lipid. Let it sit for a while, however, and the soup will thicken up and turn a creamy white as pictured. I’ve had the soup both ways and found them both delicious.

A few words on Speck

Speck is perhaps the best known food product of Alto Adige aka Südtirol, a part of Italy that belonged to Austria before World War I and still conserves much of its Teutonic culture, culinary and otherwise. To make Speck, pork thighs are salted and flavoured with a mixture of salt, pepper, juniper, rosemary and bay leaf. The thighs are then dry cured for three weeks by exposing them to alternating smoking and drying. The smoking phase uses low-resin wood so as not to give the Speck too strong a flavor. Buy your Speck in thick slices that you’ll then cut into dice when you get home.

Some recipes for zuppa di orzo call for smoked pancetta—another smoked pork product from this part of Italy—either in combination with or instead of the Speck. So if you simply substituted good old smoked bacon, the taste wouldn’t be that far off, even if the taste of bacon is typically rather more aggressively smokey than Speck. I’ve even made this soup with a leftover ham bone and liked the results.

Variations

This is the very basic ‘mother’ recipe for Italian Barley Soup. Besides switching out the Speck for another kind of cured pork—or omitting it altogether if you’d like a vegetarian/vegan dish—there are lots of variations you can try. You can add fresh herbs to the soffritto—parsley, rosemary and sage are particularly nice. Some recipes call for the addition of other vegetables. Potato or pumpkin are perhaps the most common, but you can also add leafy winter vegetables like kale or cabbage. Beans of all kinds—cannellini, borlotti, ceci, lentils, even peas—are also a very common addition, and turn zuppa di orzo into a perfectly rounded light supper.

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