Graubünden barley soup

Creamy and rich in flavour, Grisons barley soup is a typical first course of Grisons, one of the Swiss cantons.

It's easy to say barley soup. There are truly many versions , and we have tried several, but none are remotely comparable to the Grisons barley soup. This typical Swiss dish is certainly not among the best known and it's a real shame because it perfectly combines flavor and consistency in a game of ingredients that is simple to replicate, but difficult to find in other dishes.

Also in this case, since it is a traditional dish, each valley and family keeps a recipe that claims to be the original. We had the opportunity to taste it on site and were able to replicate its flavor and consistency. Here is the authentic Graubünden barley soup.

How to prepare the Grisons barley soup recipe

1. First clean all the vegetables : peel the leek by removing the outermost layer and the roots, peel the onion and carrot and also peel the celeriac. Finely slice the leek, cut the celeriac into small pieces and chop the other vegetables like a sauté.
2. In a pan, melt the butter and sauté the vegetables for a few minutes.
3. Then add the diced dried meat and after another couple of minutes cover with the vegetable broth and bring to the boil.
4. At this point, add the barley and continue cooking for at least an hour . If you use pre-cooked barley or one with shorter cooking times, calculate that the overall soup will still have to cook for the indicated time.
5. Once ready, season with salt and pepper and add the cream . Mix and distribute on plates, completing with chopped chives (or parsley).

Lighter and better if you want to experiment with this cereal is barley soup with yogurt .

Variants

Grisons barley soup, or bündner gerstensuppe , as mentioned in the introduction, is prepared differently from family to family. There are those who make it richer by adding diced potatoes and those who add beans , cannellini or borlotti beans. What really cannot be missed is the dried meat from Grisons , similar to bresaola. Finding it outside the territory is rather difficult so you can still replace it with diced bacon or speck.

Conservation

The barley soup will keep in the refrigerator for up to 3 days . Heat it on the stove before bringing it to the table, adjusting the consistency if necessary with a little water.

Origin and history

Barley soup has always been prepared in the Engadine and, more generally, throughout the canton. Also known as suppa da giutta in the Romansh language, one of the three languages ​​together with Italian and German spoken in the Grisons, it was once a holiday dish . The housewives began preparing early on Sunday morning and upon returning from mass it was ready to be brought to the table.

Today the dish has somewhat lost this connotation but still remains one of the classics offered in restaurants in the area. A similar dish is also found in the cuisine of Alto Adige, however an eighteenth-century chronicle states: " I can guarantee that in no other country does one eat a better barley soup than in the Engadine ".

Read also

Barley soup