Mutton and Barley Broth from Shop Local, Eat Well

This is a gorgeous recipe: inexpensive, easily adapted, tasty, and perfect for an icy winter night.  I made it tonight for the kids and they loved it 

For slow cooking, mutton beats lamb hands down. It is much meatier and adds great flavour to the humblest of ingredients.

Serves 6

2 tbsp avocado or ricebran oil

500 g trimmed boneless shoulder or leg of mutton, cut into 1 cm thick pieces

1 tsp cumin seeds, lightly crushed

1 onion, peeled and finely chopped

2 sticks celery, trimmed and diced

1 large carrot, peeled and diced

1 small swede or turnip, peeled and diced

2 sprigs of rosemary

2 fresh or 1 dried bay leaf

1.5 litres fresh lamb stock (see page 156)

100 g pearl barley, rinsed

salt and freshly ground black pepper

 

Heat half the oil in a large saucepan and gently fry the mutton with the cumin seeds, stirring, for 3–4 minutes until browned all over. Remove from the saucepan on to a plate, using a slotted spoon.

Heat the remaining oil in the same saucepan
and fry the vegetables for 5 minutes until softened but not brown. Return the mutton to the pan, add the herbs and pour over the stock. Bring to the boil, reduce to a gentle simmer, cover and cook for about 1½ hours until tender. Add the pearl barley, bring back to the boil, cover and continue to cook, for a further 50 minutes until the barley is swollen and tender.
Discard the herbs and season well.

Ladle into warmed soup bowls. Serve immediately with bread to mop up the stock.

From:  Shop Local Eat Well: Cooking with Seasonal Produce in New Zealand by Kathryn Hawkins with Laura Faire (New Holland Publishers, 2009 RRP $29.99)