Extra soup

BH turned out a bit of tenderloin a couple of days ago which meant I could muscle in with an impromptu pork soup. The last such being an off-piste version involving leeks, as reported at reference 1 towards the end of last month.

Started 8oz of pearl barley in about two and a half pints of water 90 minutes before the off. Added a few bits of celery and onion a little later, followed by two large onions, coarsely chopped. Simmer.

Coarsely chop the pork and add that about 45 minute before the off. More simmering. Added a little more water at some point.

Add the white cabbage maybe a little more than 5 minutes before the off. Followed a couple of minutes later by the mushrooms. Caps halved, stalks coarsely chopped.

No stock cube, clove of garlic, salt, pepper or anything else of that ilk to be seen. Although looking back at reference 1, the touch of green did do something for the visuals.

On the plate.

We did something more than half in the first sitting, then polished off the balance, with the addition of between half a pint and a pint of water after we got back from London this afternoon. The barley, while cooked, still soaked up a fair bit of water overnight.

A reliable recipe; just the thing for a cold day. Particularly when eating in the kitchen, which I believe to be a bit colder in the winter than it was with the old boiler in the original boiler hole. Presumably the old boiler and associated pipework leaked plenty of heat out into the kitchen - whereas our new efficient boiler talks directly to the outside world. A loss of heat which has not been made up by double glazing the large kitchen window and replacing the old back door with a plastic one.

PS: in the margins of this post, I was interested to read about a financial instrument called a non-deliverable forward (NDF) at reference 2, with a beginners' guide at reference 3 - except that I did not take the time to digest it properly. But as far as I can make out, an NDF is a deal expressed and settled in some respectable currency like the US dollar, but is essentially a bet on a currency which is not respectable, or in which you are not supposed to trade for some other reason, like the invasion of the Ukraine. And it is all OK, because at no point does either party to this trade actually own any of the currency which is not respectable. Presumably various members of our much vaunted financial services industry make good money out of these deals aka bets, but in the case of the Ukraine, it all looks a bit smelly to me.

References

Reference 1: https://psmv5.blogspot.com/2025/02/jigsaw-20-series-3-report-no4.html.

Reference 2: Investors seek to profit from Russia as Trump pursues rapprochement: Hedge funds and brokers eye the country’s corporate bonds and the rouble - Joseph Cotterill, Financial Times - 2025.

Reference 3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-deliverable_forward.