BBQ Beef Soup: Roasted Peppers and Barley

[Shawn W]

3qt beef broth
1 large onion diced
5 stocks celery, sliced
some green celery leaves cut up
1 dried guajillo, diced seeded & destemmed
2 cloves fresh crushed garlic
1 ea red and orange bell peppers, roasted black, peeled and large diced
4 ripe red vine tomoatoes, broiled until the skin pops, diced (and all the juice in the pan)
3T dried parsley
fresh coarse ground mixed peppercorns to taste
3/4lb pot barley
2T fresh oregano leaves chopped up
top up soup meat with leftover pulled beef, I used about 1/2lb

Simmer beef bones, scrap and foil juice from a pulled beef cook for several hours. I used stuff from 2 8lb roasts, I had to top the flavor up with some Bovril so I'd suggest using more beef bones, enough to make 3 qts of broth (meat and bones removed).

Allow to cool somewhat. Strain out bones and meat, run broth through a gravy seperator, from seperator pour through fine mesh strainer.

Return to simmer, add onions, garlic, celery, celery leaves, simmer 30 minutes.

Meanwhile roast peel and dice tomatoes and bell peppers, remove meat from soup bones (I got 1.5C of meat out of it).

Add barley, guajillo, diced tomatoes, parsley, add dried oregano if not using fresh, simmer 50 minutes.

With about 10 minutes to go add meat from the bones, pulled beef, roasted diced bell peppers, pepper, fresh oregano if using fresh.

Pot barley takes about an hour. As soon as it's tender enough (should be within about 10 minutes) turn off the heat. Allow to sit at least an hour before serving.



It was snowing yesterday so I wanted soup. I made this beef soup with the bones, scrap and foil juice from a bone in blade (chuck) roast I cooked last week along with a portion of pulled beef at the end.

For seasoning I wanted to do something different than thyme & bay leaves in my usual beef soup recipe. I had some fresh oregano to use up and given the rub I used on the beef I thought it would work well with garlic and a guajillo pepper and some bell peppers and tomatoes.

The beef was rubbed with my ancho rub, only this batch was ancho, guajillo and new mexico fresh ground chiles.

I served it like Fr Onion Soup, it was great. Floated 1/2bagel in the soup topped with Mozza and broiled brown:

 

[Shawn W]

Wanted to mention about the float 1/2 bagel thing. I loved the flavor and the texture but it was bordering on too hard to cut with a spoon in a little soup bowl. On the other hand I liked it more than some fr onion soups I've hade like this that use light bread like a slice of french or some croutons ... they often don't have ENOUGH texture so somewhere in between the bagel and french bread would be great or I'll just cut the bagel 1/2 into say 8 or 10 pieces.

I should have baked or nuked the soup for a bit after adding the bagel. The soup was piping hot but the bagel cooled it enough that the quick trip under the broiler to brown the cheese didn't restore the heat.

Here's a pic of the reserved foil liquid, scrap from pulling and beef bones. Scrap is perhaps an unappealing word and there is probably a better word ... but I got 1.5C of really nice meat out of it.

 

[Bryan S]

That looks mighty Darn tasty there Bud. Love the French onion soup theme for the beef soup.

 

[Shawn W]

Thanks Bryan, I had considered sharp cheddar but the mild cheese worked really well.

Noticed one thing today I didn't yesterday, the guajillo skin on larger pieces is not appealing, too thick, tough. I'll either cut the chile up quite small next time or figure out how to get the skin off.