Chicken Barley Soup

Week two of the pandemic and the bakery is adapting. Sofia — fourteen, tireless, the strategist I didn't know I needed until I needed her — has reconfigured the entire operation. The takeout counter is more organized now: a menu board outside, a phone number for pre-orders, a payment system that is all contactless (she bought a Square terminal with tap-to-pay, thirty-nine dollars, which she called "the best investment I've ever made," and she might be right). Pre-orders are working. People call in the morning: "I want six conchas and two empanadas." We prepare the order. They drive up. We hand the bag through the door. No contact. No COVID. Just bread, from my hands to the bag to their car to their table. The chain is longer but the chain holds.

Luis started driving deliveries. The bakery van — the van that smells like bread and has "Panadería Rosa" on the side — is now a delivery vehicle. Luis drives the neighborhood, bringing orders to doors, leaving bags on porches, ringing doorbells and stepping back. He is the bakery's essential worker, the silent man who delivers bread without words, and the silence is his gift to a world that has too many words right now and not enough bread.

Doña Esperanza called. She is eighty-two. She lives alone. She cannot come to the bakery. She said: "Mija, I miss my morning concha." I said: "I'll bring you one." I bring her a concha every morning now. At 6:30 AM, after the first batch comes out, I bag two conchas and a coffee and I drive to her apartment on Ninth Street and I leave them at her door and I knock and I step back and she opens the door and she picks up the bag and she looks at me and she says, "Gracias, mija," and her eyes are wet and my eyes are wet and the distance between us — six feet, the pandemic distance, the gap that the virus carved between the living — is the cruelest distance I have ever measured, because Doña Esperanza is eighty-two and she is alone and the only thing I can give her is a concha in a bag, and the bag is not enough, and it is everything.

I made arroz con pollo for the family — a one-pot pandemic dinner, easy, filling, the food of a woman who is working the bakery, managing the takeout, delivering to Doña Esperanza, supervising remote learning for four children, and keeping herself upright through the particular combination of adrenaline and denial that is the Mexican mother's default setting for crisis. The arroz con pollo simmered while Camila sang on a Zoom call and Diego debugged his drone and Isabella studied from her whiteboard and Sofia redesigned the bakery's workflow on a napkin, and the house was chaos, beautiful chaos, the chaos of a family that is together and alive and fed and that is the only thing that matters.

The arroz con pollo I made that week was the same spirit as this chicken barley soup — a one-pot meal that asks almost nothing of you while giving everything back. When you are running a bakery, driving deliveries, and keeping four children fed and schooled all under the same roof, you need something that simmers on its own while the chaos swirls around it. This soup is that meal: throw it together before the Zoom calls start, and by the time Sofia has redesigned the workflow on her third napkin, dinner is already done.

Prep Time: 15 min | Cook Time: 50 min | Total Time: 1 hr 5 min | Servings: 6

Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium yellow onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
3 medium carrots, sliced into rounds
3 stalks celery, sliced
1 1/2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken thighs
3/4 cup pearl barley, rinsed
6 cups low-sodium chicken broth
1 can (14.5 oz) diced tomatoes, undrained
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
Salt and black pepper to taste
Fresh parsley, chopped, for serving

Instructions

Sauté the aromatics. Heat olive oil in a large heavy-bottomed pot or Dutch oven over medium heat. Add the onion and cook 4–5 minutes until softened and translucent. Add the garlic and cook 1 minute more, stirring so it doesn’t burn.
Add vegetables. Stir in the carrots and celery. Cook another 3–4 minutes, just until they begin to soften.
Brown the chicken. Nestle the chicken thighs into the pot whole. Let them sear on one side for 2–3 minutes to build a little color, then flip.
Build the soup. Pour in the chicken broth and diced tomatoes. Add the rinsed barley, thyme, parsley, and smoked paprika. Stir to combine and bring to a boil over medium-high heat.
Simmer low and slow. Once boiling, reduce heat to low, cover, and simmer for 35–40 minutes, until the barley is tender and the chicken is cooked through and easy to shred.
Shred the chicken. Remove the chicken thighs with tongs and use two forks to shred the meat into bite-sized pieces. Return the shredded chicken to the pot and stir.
Season and serve. Taste the soup and adjust salt and black pepper as needed. Ladle into bowls and top with fresh chopped parsley.

Nutrition (per serving)

Chicken Barley Soup — The One Pot That Holds a Family Together