Brown Windsor Soup from Jamie Oliver

Have you ever come across a less appealing name for a dish - Brown Windsor Soup? A marketing man's nightmare. But if you can get past the name, it is really good. Very winter warmer-ish. I can see us eating this from mugs outside at Halloween or Bonfire Night.

It was a Jamie Oliver recipe from Sainsbury's freebie magazine, as is the photo - love those cups. But I can't find it anywhere on line - probably due to it's unappealing moniker. But it is tasty, although I have to warn you, it features Marmite, a love it or hate it ingredient. Hubby loathes the stuff, but failed to detect it in the soup - it just gives a background savoury hit. Here's the recipe:

Melt a big knob of butter and a little olive oil in a big saucepan and brown about 500g diced stewing beef. Add a tablespoon of Marmite and a splash of Worcestershire sauce. A fair amount of liquid will be released, but don't panic, just keep stirring until it has evaporated. Throw in a couple of sprigs of rosemary, a bay leaf, 1 red onion (peeled and chopped) 2 carrots (peeled and chopped) and 3 sticks of celery (trimmed and chopped). Sweat gently with a lid on until the veggies are softened. Stir in a tablespoon of flour and then pour in 2 litres of beef stock (actually I used a bit less, but topped up the water level as I cooked the soup). Season and bring to the simmer. Add 150g of pearl barley and cook gently for about an hour. Discard rosemary and bay leaf. You can whizz the soup for a couple of seconds with a hand blender to thicken it a bit, but we liked ours left chunky.

Jamie Oliver is on the receiving end of a lot of stick this week as British schoolchildren are eating fewer of the 'healthy' school meals which are now on offer thanks to his intervention. We manage school meals twice a week, but this Jamie recipe will be appearing in the food flask of a lunchbox near us very soon.