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Barley and Tomato Soup
1 1/2 cups tomato 1 1/2 cups water 1 small onion, sliced 2 tablespoons pearl barley 1/2 tablespoon oil or butter substitute 1 teaspoon salt Cook together all the ingredients except the barley for twenty minutes. Rub through a fine colander. Add water, if necessary, to make three-fourths quart. Put into a double boiler. Add the barley, which has been thoroughly washed, and cook four or five hours.
A thin, strained tomato broth thickened only by long-cooked barley. The four-to-five hour instruction belongs to the double boiler, not to the barley itself.
- The tomato"1 1/2 cups tomato" most likely means canned tomatoes with their juice, or an equivalent amount of peeled fresh tomatoes broken up. Canned tomato of the period was often packed without seasoning, so the teaspoon of salt may be all the seasoning present.
- Butter substituteBooks of this era used the phrase for margarine, nut butters or vegetable shortening. Any neutral oil, or the half tablespoon of butter the recipe itself allows as an alternative, will serve.
- Three-fourths quartThat is 3 cups. Top up the strained purée with water to reach that volume before the barley goes in, since the grain will absorb a good deal as it swells.
- Strain first, alwaysThe tomato and onion are cooked and pushed through the sieve before the barley is added. Reversing the order forces the cooked grain through the mesh and you lose the clear, silky body the recipe is after.
- Cooking timeFour or five hours reflects a double boiler over water, where the contents never exceed about 200F and barley softens very slowly. Pearl barley simmered directly in the pot is tender in 40 to 50 minutes; if you use a saucepan, expect to add water as it reduces.
- Pearl versus hulledPearl barley is polished and softens into the liquid, giving a cloudier soup; hulled or pot barley is less processed and holds its shape better. Either can be used, though the recipe specifies pearl.
- YieldAbout three cups of liquid go into the double boiler, giving two modest first-course servings. Doubling is straightforward.