Beef and Greens Soup

This recipe, adapted from Julia Busuttil Nishimura’s Ostro, makes the most of the beautiful flavour in some of the tougher cuts of beef like beef shin or osso bucco with long slow cooking. Combined with simple grains, greens and beer, it is also quite a substantial meal, and perfect for when the days are becoming a little cooler…

Cook time: 4 hours  |  Makes: 4 big bowls of soup

Ingredients:

• 500g beef shin, occo bucco or similar

• 2 onions finely sliced

• 1 cup of dark beer or stout

• 200g pearl barley or farro

• 1 bunch of leafy greens like kale or chard with stems removed, or 4 sticks of celery, roughly chopped

• Butter

• Olive oil

• Salt and pepper

• Parsley

• Optional grated parmesan

Method:

Caramelise your onions in a frying pan in a wad of butter and some olive oil, until they are soft. Put these aside.

Heat some more olive oil in your pan and brown your beef piece well on both sides.

Pour in your beer and bring to a simmer. Add 1.5 litres of water, bring to the boil and then simmer for 3 hours or until the beef is tender, topping up the water as need be to ensure the meat stays covered.