Vipavska Corba: Slovenian Sauerkraut Soup

Vipavska corba is a Slovenian stew of sauerkraut, white beans and bacon. It is very similar to the favorite dish of Trieste, Italy: white bean and sauerkraut soup. But the Slovenians, being very fond of fatty soups and stews, add a pound of bacon to their sauerkraut soup.

The basic cooking of this stew can be done ahead and the soup put together in a few minutes. This is actually the traditional way of preparing this stew as the Slovenians prefer to cook all the ingredients separately and then mix them together at the last minute. Serve the Corba with a sour rye bread and fresh butter.

Borovnica Viaduct, Slovenia

The following recipe comes from Ann Rogers's delightful austerity cookbook, The New Cookbook for Poor Poets and Others (1966).


Vipavska Corba

1 pound small white beans
1 two-pound jar sauerkraut
1 pound slab bacon
1 pound potatoes
1 tablespoon fat
1 tablespoon flour
1 large onion
3 cloves garlic
2 or 3 bay leaves
salt and pepper
sour cream or yogurt

Soak the beans overnight. Remove the ring from the bacon but leave it in one piece. Cut the potatoes into small chunks. Cook the beans, bacon, and potatoes separately. Keep the stock!

Chop onion and garlic and saute them in one tablespoon of the fat that has risen to the top of the bacon stock. Sprinkle in flour and stir. Then add the beans, potatoes, sauerkraut, bacon that has been cut in dice, bay leaves, salt, and pepper. Add more water if necessary. Cover and cook until heated through. Top each serving with sour cream or yogurt.

If one pound of bacon is too dear, the quantity can be reduced.

Lovage Soup Base

Lovage has long been used in Southern European cuisine. Sometimes known as Maggikraut because its taste resembles the popular soup seasoning by the same name, lovage imparts a delicately sweet flavor reminiscent of celery to foods. It can be used to make tea, intensely flavored vinegars, cordials or pastes intended for soup stock.

Medicinally it is frequently used as an antiseptic or a tonic to stimulate appetite. And should you wish to plant it in your garden, it will improve the health of all plants near it, much like borage drives away pests.

Eleanour Sinclair Rohde, in her delightful 1922 book A Garden of Herbs: Being a Practical Handbook to the Making of an Old English Herb Garden, tells us that "lovage was one of the herbs introduced by the Romans, and until the middle of the last century it was always grown in English herb gardens." She reports that, according to an authority on the subject by the name of Parkinson, "the whole plant and every part of it smelleth somewhat strongly and aromatically and of a hot, sharpe, biting taste. The Germans and other Nations in times past used both the roote and seede instead of Pepper to season their meates and brothes and found them as comfortable and warming."

Below is a German recipe for a soup stock base made from lovage (the original can be found at chefkoch.de). Use a spoonful or two in stews and soup to add a depth and complexity of flavor to your meals. It will last in the refrigerator for several weeks or, if you can the paste, it will last a year or so.


Lovage Soup Stock Base (translated from the German)

1/2 celery root, peeled and cut in pieces
10 carrots, cleaned and cut in pieces
3 leeks, cleaned and cut in pieces
2 onions, skinned and cut in pieces
3 cloves of garlic, peeled and pressed
2 tomatoes, cut in pieces
1 bunch of lovage, cut finely
1 bunch of parsley
1 tbsp. salt
10 pieces of pimento

Put about 1/2 cup of water in a large pot and cook all of the above ingredients until soft. Add salt to taste (it should not overwhelm the delicate flavor of the herbs and vegetables). Put the cooked mass into a food processor and chop until the whole forms a firm mixture (it shouldn't be too runny). Keep in refrigerator for a few weeks or proceed as for canning.

Székely Goulash

On a cold evening in 1846, a county archivist stopped by a local inn in Budapest. He was famished and tried to order one of his favorite dishes. But it was close to closing time at the little inn and there was nothing to be served but pork and some leftover sourkraut. His hunger spurring him on, the little archivist, who went by the name Jozsef Székely, demanded that the few scaps of food left in the kitchen be thrown together and heated into a stew. He found the resulting dish so delightful that he returned to the inn, with friends in tow, to order this new goulash dish. The poet Sándor Petőfi later christened this new goulash dish Székelygulyás.

Below is a recipe for this delicious and economical meal from Hungary Starts Here, a delightful blog on the fascinating cuisine of Hungary.


Székely Goulash

1/2 kilo meat (pork shoulder/leg or turkey's leg), 1 kilo sauerkraut (pickled cabbage), 1 medium onion, 1 tbs red paprika powder, water, oil, salt and ground black pepper and marjoram to taste.

Ingredients for the roux: 1 cup sour cream, 1 tbs flour.

Instructions:

1. Make a pörkölt (stew). I mean that heat the oil in a large pot and the sliced onions and sauté until they get a nice golden brown color. Add the meat cube and sauté together until the meat begin to whiten. Sprinkle them with paprika powder and sauté a bit more. Add the salt and ground black pepper and marjoram, pour water enough to cover the content of the pan and let it simmer on low heat for the meat is half-cooked.
2. Rinse the sauerkraut (so it's not too sour). Afterwards steam the sauerkraut in oil until it's half-cooked.
3. Add the steamed sauerkraut to the pörkölt and cooked together until the meat cubes and sauerkraut are also softened.
4. Mix flour with the sour cream in a soup-plate and add one big spoon soup, mixed well. When cool enough the soup carefully add the whole mixed and boil again.
5. Finally if necessary add more spice and a little (just one or two teaspoon) juice of rinsed sauerkraut. This step is the second most important secret.

Bone Stock for Soup

Soup bones have served as a base for many a delicious stew and soup over the centuries. An 1878 edition of the American Agriculturist praises the soup bone for its easy versatility: "Any good lean meat may be used for soup, for it is the juice of the meat that is the essential principle of meat soup. But bones contain gelatine, which is chiefly useful in giving body to the soup," an article from the journal informs us. Indeed, soup bones not only give soup a lovely body -- they also impart numerous beneficial vitamins and minerals to the stock. The Agriculturist claims that shin and leg bones make the best soup, but certainly any type of bone will greatly improve the flavor and nutritional profile of any vegetable soup.

Certainly soup bones, which can be had for under a dollar from your local butcher, are a most economical addition to one's weekly shopping list. A thick and hearty soup can be made from a single bone and a few vegetables of one's choice.

The 1898 New Galt Cook Book offers a recipe for a tasty stock made from soup bones. Add any vegetable you wish to this stock; parsnips, carrots, onions and kale make for a most tasty soup. If your budget allows, stir in strips of stew meat to make a more hearty meal, though this is unnecessary given that the bone alone does a fine job of thickening the soup stock. And though the recipe below suggests you break the bones into small pieces, this need not be done; with enough boiling (about one hour) the gelatin will be able to thicken the stock without the bones having to be broken.


Bone Stock for Soup

Bones of any meat which has been dressed, as sirloin bone, leg of mutton bone, etc., two scraped carrots, one stick celery, enough cold water to cover the bones or enough of the liquor left from braising meat to cover them, one spoonful of salt. Break the bones into very small pieces, put them into a stew pan with the carrots and celery, cover them with cold water or cold braise liquor and let it boil quickly till the scum rises. Skim it off and throw in some cold water when the scum will rise again. This must be done two or three times till the stock is quite clear, then draw the pan from the fire [or heat] and let it stew for two hours till all the goodness is extracted from the bones; strain it off and let it stand all night. The next day, take off the grease [from the top of the soup stock] very carefully and lift it from the sediment at the bottom of the pan. It will then be fit for use.

Economical Ham and Cabbage Soup

According to the 1868 book Gardening for the South, the cabbage was one of the most useful crops in cultivation at the time. "It is a crop that can be put on every bit of otherwise idle ground," the book advises, "They can be planted between beds and rows of anything and everything else, to be eaten as greens when young, or left to head on the coming off of other crops, and if there should be a superabundance above the wants of the family, nothing is better for the cow and the pig."

Certainly the cabbage is an economical, nutritional powerhouse. It's an excellent source of vitamin C, and contains significant amounts of glutamine. In folk medicine, it's used to treat inflammation; a paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort.

Below is a recipe from a 1945 advertisement for Armor Ham using plenty of cabbage. If you want to make the dish even more economical, use a ham bone instead of the flesh to season the soup.


Armor's Star Ham and Cabbage Soup

2 tbsps. butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/4 cup chopped green pepper
3 tbsps. flour
3 cups boiling water
2 cups shredded cabbage
2 cups cooked, cubed Armor star ham
1 bay leaf
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
3/4 cup thick sour cream
2 tbsps, chopped parsley

Lightly fry onion, celery, green pepper in butter until clear. Remove from heat, stir in flour and slowly add boiling water. Return to heat and add cabbage, Armor's star ham and seasonings. Cook eight to ten minutes or until cabbage is tender. Remove bay leaf. Add sour cream and parsley. Let heat through. Top each serving with a sprig of parsley, 6 generous servings. (Only fifteen minutes and "soup's on")