Barley and Root Vegetable Hotpot
This is a peasant one-pot with no single flag on it, the kind of barley-and-root-vegetable stew cooked from the Rhine to the Baltic whenever the cellar is full of storage vegetables. Hulled barley is the engine: it stays chewy, and its starch thickens the broth into something closer to a stew than a soup. Celery root, turnip, and carrot bring earthy sweetness, toasted tomato paste and no-salt bouillon build the savory base that meat would usually carry, and white beans stirred in at the end make it a full meal. The flavor is in the technique, sweating the leeks slowly and toasting the paste until it turns brick red. It thickens overnight, so make the whole pot.
Ingredients
- 1 cup Hulled barley, rinsed
- 1 1/2 cups Great northern beans, cooked or canned, drained
- 2 wholes Leeks, white and light green, sliced and washed
- 1 whole Yellow onions, diced
- 3 wholes Carrots (cooking), cut in coins
- 12 oz Celery root, peeled and diced
- 2 wholes Turnips, peeled and diced
- 4 cloves Garlic, minced
- 2 tbsp Tomato paste
- 2 wholes Bay leaves
- 1 1/2 tsp Dried thyme
- 1 tbsp no-salt vegetable bouillon
- 1/3 cup Flat-leaf parsley, chopped
- 1/2 tsp Black peppercorns, freshly ground
Method
- Sweat the onion and leeks in a splash of water in a large pot until soft and sweet, about 8 minutes, adding more water whenever the pan dries. Building this slow, unsalted allium base is where the depth of a no-oil stew comes from, so do not rush it.
- Push the vegetables aside and toast the tomato paste in the dry center of the pot until it darkens to brick red, about 2 minutes. Cooking the paste past raw drives off its tinny edge and builds the savory backbone that stands in for meat stock.
- Add the garlic, then the barley, and stir for a minute to coat. Toasting the grain briefly in the aromatics firms its surface so it stays chewy through a long simmer instead of turning to mush.
- Add the celery root, turnips, carrots, bay, thyme, black pepper, bouillon, and 6 cups (1.4 L) water. Bring to a boil, then simmer covered until the barley is tender and the roots are soft, 40 to 45 minutes. The barley's starch thickens the broth as it cooks, which gives the pot its stewy body with no flour.
- Stir in the beans in the last 10 minutes, just long enough to heat through. Adding them late keeps them whole instead of blowing apart, and they push the protein up so the bowl eats like a full meal. Finish with a heavy shower of parsley and more pepper.
Nutrition
Estimated per serving: 320 calories, 14 g protein, 13 g fiber, 130 mg sodium. Computed from USDA FoodData Central reference values for the main ingredients. This is an approximation, not a laboratory measurement. How these are computed.
Cost per serving is estimated from US national-average retail prices for cheap staple forms, using BLS dried-bean prices and USDA produce prices. Prices vary by store and season, so treat it as a guide, not a receipt. How this is computed.
