We eat a lot of soup - or should I say slurp a lot of soup? It's mostly alternating between red lentil dal and green lentil soup with tons of veggies. This time I quite fancied a pearl barley soup, and because I picked up a rotisserie chook from the Food is Free market (where leftover supermarket goes here instead of landfill), I thought perhaps a pearl barley chicken soup might work.

I also had a few swede, fresh from the garden. And when I make soup, I love to add bits and bobs from the garden - parsley seeds, fennel tops, oregano and thyme. So I'd got half way through cooking the barley and the veggies and herbs and thought - can you add lemon to this kind of soup? Google to the rescue, which came up with a persian chicken barley soup with lemon.

So what makes it Persian? I don't know. Yoghurt, herbs, grains is quite common, so I guess that's it. The recipe I read asked for milk AND yoghurt, but I just added a few tablespoons of yoghurt. They also blended half the soup to make it creamier - I wouldn't have thought of doing that, but turns out it was amazing.

Persian Lemon Pearl Barley Chicken Soup

• 1 cup pearl barley
• 5 cups of water
• 1 - 2 onions
• 2 - 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 - 2 chopped swedes
• 3 sticks of chopped celery or 1/2 fennel bulb
• 2 carrots
• Various herbs - bayleaf, parsley, thyme, oregano - a big handful
• Optional silverbeet, kale or spinach
• 1/2 rotisserie chook
• Stock to taste
• Juice of 1 - 2 lemons
• Greek yoghurt - 1/2 cup

Chop the veggies and add to the pot with water and pearl barley, bring to the boil and then simmer for about half an hour until the pearl barley is soft. Put half the soup in a blender and blend til smooth. Add back to the pot with shredded chicken. Reheat and add yoghurt.

Serve with an extra squeeze of lemon, and chopped parsley (lovage or tarragon would also be delicious). Optional chilli flakes, cracked black pepper or black onion seeds.

I have to say we don't eat a lot of meat but a good hearty chicken soup is bloody good when you're feeling a bit wintery sick. I think it would work well without chook. The lemon really brightens and lifts the soup, and the extra herbs add a delicious nutritional value too.

What's your favourite winter soup?

With Love,

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