Perfect Chicken-Less Chicken Soup With Vegetables

This is the soup I made for the pre and post Yom Kippur fast meals. For those who aren't Jewish, Yom Kippur is the holiest day in the year, and observing it includes a 25 hour fast, from just before dusk until night the following day. There are many Jews who aren't otherwise observant, but they still fast. For example, yesterday, just minutes before the fast was to begin, one of Israel's top tennis players, Dudi Sela, forfeited a game at a major tournament.

This is a Chicken-Less Chicken Soup, because, although I did make the stock with a nice big chicken, you can't see any sign of that chicken in the soup itself.  That's because I first began making the soup the day before. I boiled up a chicken in water for just over half an hour. I checked to see if the chicken was fully cooked before removing it from the soup. I then refrigerated both the soup and the chicken separately.

The next morning I checked and saw that there was a thick layer of hard fat on the soup stock. I carefully spooned it off and then began making the soup. First I put about two-thirds 2/3 a cup of barley on the bottom of a pot. You can use more or less, depending on what you like. And as you can see, I also cut up an onion for the soup. Then I poured the fatless stock onto the barley and onions and cooked it until the barley was swollen.

Once the barely seemed cooked, I added parsley root, carrots, mushrooms and parsley leaves to the soup.

If you think it needs more water, then add to the cooking soup. I did. Just before turning off the flame, I seasoned with a bit of coarse salt and pepper. Of course you can use different vegetables, though I do consider onions and carrots necessities.

Here's my bowl of soup from the pre-Yom Kippur meal. It was very easy to make.

Enjoy, and tell me what you did with this basic recipe, thanks.