Bündner Gerstensuppe — Alpine Barley Soup

Ingredients

• ¾ cup pearl barley
• 2 Carrot, diced
• 1 Leek, sliced
• 1 celery stalk + 1 potato, diced
• 3 oz smoked bacon or ham, diced (optional but alpine)
• 6 cups stock
• ½ cup cream
• 2 tbsp butter
• Chives

Method

1. Sweat the vegetables (and bacon if using) in the butter 5 minutes without color.
2. Add the barley and stock; simmer gently 40–45 minutes, stirring occasionally, until the barley is tender and the soup has thickened from its released starch.
3. The texture target: creamy and almost velvety even before the cream — barley does the heavy lifting.
4. Stir in the cream, warm through, season well.
5. Chives over. Served in every Graubünden mountain hut — the soup that makes the cable-car descent optional.