Farro vegetable soup with a mirror of herbal oil

I am in a bit of a soup making period at the moment. Perhaps it's to do with the rainy, grey weather out, the soups warm me up instantly, they comfort and their's always the promise of a thick slab of sour dough bread along side with millions of various toppings, cheese being almost always my first choice.

I have wanted to cook farro for a long time and I have seen lots of various uses of it in recipes. Somehow though I liked putting it a soup most, as its a chewy, puffed up grain that adds body to an otherwise soft mushy vegetable soup. Farro is basically a grain, I used a pearled farro instead of a whole grain as its what mostly recommended in the various recipes I have read up on using farro.

The herbal oil was inspired by seeing a french chef adding pesto to the top of a vegetable soup. I am a pesto freak so as I had some fresh herbs at home, namely parsley & bail I wanted to give this a try.


For this soup you could use any type of vegetable. I had wanted to use kale or spinach but I didn't find any at my local stores. I used the following vegetables. I added beans but they are not at all necessary as the farro in itself adds a lot of body;

1/2 head of Italian broccoli or otherwise called Romanesco broccoli
2 medium sized carrots
1/2 red paprika
1 dl chick peas - optional
1 dl white beans - optional
1 parsnip - optional
1/2 courgette
3 stalks of celery
1 tsp oil
2 vegetables stock cubes
5-7 dl water
salt & pepper
1/2 fresh chili or a few pinches of dried chili

herbal oil
1 handful basil
1 handful parsley
1 sprig of dill
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
salt & pepper
zest of 1/2 lemon
1 tbsp grated parmesan - optional but highly recommended

1. Begin by peeling and chopping the vegetables. You can keep the vegetables chunk and thus chop them larger or make them into smaller cubes. 
2. Fry the vegetables in oil till they have all softened slightly. 
3. Add the beans & farro.
4. Season with salt & pepper, add the water and crumble the stock cubes. 
5. place a lid on the soup and remove once its come to a boil. Boil the soup on a low heat for appox. 20-30 min. The softer you want the vegetables the longer you allow the soup to cook. 

For the herbal oil,

1. Add all the herbs to a blender. 
2. Grate the lemon zest into the blender. 
3. Add salt & pepper, oil and grated parmesan. Blend. 
4. Taste. If needed add a few drops of lemon juice. 

Once the soup is done add a spoonful of the herbal oil to the top of the soup and watch is spread like a green mirror over the soup. Enjoy!