Resurrection Soup

My mother used to make this when the situation was dire.  DIRE.  When she was really worried about someone, or when that someone was broken-hearted and had had impacted wisdom teeth dug out and had contracted the  flu at the same time and and they were scary skinny.  And this soup would make me them much better.  The idea of this soup would make you better.  It had bones and gristle and marrow and good Scotch barley in it.  It smelled and tasted like you would survive if you ate it.


First, you need some soup bones.  Your up-scale type grocery stores will not have these good soup bones.  Trust me. 


These bones  must have some meat  on them, but most importantly, a big patch of marrow in the bone.  Mmmm.  Mmmmarrrow.

I start out the fancy-pants way by browning the soup bones, but my Mother didn't.  So it isn't really necessary.

Chop up some onion, carrot and celery put it on the browned meat and add some water or broth.   I had some julienned carrot for this batch on hand and so I used that.  Y'all know I love my pressure cooker and so this is what I use to make it.  Cover it with water and batten down the top.  Let it rip.  Let it cook for at least 30 minutes in the PC or an hour and a half just barely simmering on the stove top.   If you abuse your meat on the stove top it will get back at you by being very tough and taking twice as long.
When the meat is tender, or as tender as it is ever going to be,

take it out of the broth and cut the meat off of the bones.

Make sure all the marrow is out of the bones, too.  Put that all back into the broth, along with some salt, about a half-dollar's worth.

Then add your pearl barley.  About a cup.

Let that cook for a while longer, about 30 minutes on simmer.

Then you are done.  Some might want to skim some of the fat off, but if you are really sick, don't do it.  It will cure what ails'ya.