Categories: Soups/stews, Poultry 
      Yield: 4 servings 
  
      2 oz Pot barley                        1/4 lb Mushrooms 
  2 1/2 pt Good quality chicken stock          2    Chicken livers, if available 
      1    Lemon                                    Cold cooked chicken meat * 
      1    Fat garlic clove                    5 tb Coarsley chopped parsley 
      2    Leeks                               1 sm Knob butter 
  
  *Note: The recipe calls for 1-2 chicken livers, if available, and "shreds 
  of cold cooked chicken meat, if available". 
   
  Grate the zest of the lemon very finely and reserve it.  Put the barley 
  into a soup pan, add 1 tablespoon lemon juice and cold chicken stock. Bring 
  to the boil, cover and simmer for about 40 minutes until the barley is 
  tender with just a hint of bite to the centre of the grain.  Add the 
  chicken meat, if used, to the pan towards the end of this time to heat it 
  through gently but thoroughly. 
   
  When the barley is nearly ready, slice the mushrooms thickly, and slice the 
  leeks (tender green parts as well as the white) very thinly indeed so that 
  the leaves fall into ribbony shreds.  Cut the chicken livers, if available, 
  into 2 to 3 pieces and saute them briefly in the butter until crusty on the 
  outside but still pink within.  Fry the mushrooms in the fat remaining in 
  the pan then reduce the heat and cook the leeks gently for 2 to 3 minutes, 
  just shaking occasionally.  Then add contents of the frying pan to the soup 
  pan.  Add the mushrooms and check seasoning. 
   
  Put the chicken livers into a warmed soup tureen and crush with a fork to 
  make a coarse paste.  Add the finely chopped garlic, the lemon zest and 
  most of the parsley.  Pour on the piping hot soup, stir to mix well, 
  sprinkle the rest of the parsley on top and serve. 
   
  Note: If the soup is not served straight away, but allowed to get cold, the 
  barley will go on swelling and softening; when reaheated the dish then 
  seems more like a stew than a soup.  I like it this way but you may prefer 
  to lift out the grain and cool it down separately from the rest of the 
  soup. 
   
  Source: Philippa Davenport in "Country Living" (British), February 1988. 
  Typed for you by Karen Mintzias