Kapustnica

Ingredients

• Sauerkraut — with its brine700 g
• Smoked pork ribs500 g
• Smoked sausage — in rounds300 g
• Dried porcini30 g
• Onion2
• Prunes100 g
• Sweet paprika1 tbsp
• Flour2 tbsp
• Soured cream — to serve150 ml
• Bay leaf2
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Soak the mushrooms in a cup of warm water for twenty minutes. Keep the water.

   22 min

2. 2

   Simmer the smoked ribs in two litres of water for forty minutes with the bay.

   42 min

3. 3

   Squeeze the kraut and set the brine aside. Add the kraut, the mushrooms with their water and the prunes to the broth and cook thirty minutes.

   32 min

4. 4

   Fry the onion, take it off the heat, stir in the paprika and flour and let it down with a ladle of broth until smooth.

   10 min

5. 5

   Pour the roux into the pot, add the sausage and cook fifteen minutes more.

   16 min

6. 6

   Strip the meat off the bones, return it to the soup and bring the sourness up with the brine to taste. Serve with soured cream.

   8 min

About the dish

Kapustnica is cooked on 24 December and eaten before midnight. In most regions it is the first thing on the Christmas Eve table, and every family has its own version.

The sourness of the kraut is balanced by smoked meat and prunes. The brine is not thrown out: it goes in at the end, to bring the soup to the sharpness you actually want.

Dried mushrooms give the aroma that separates kapustnica from an ordinary cabbage soup. They are soaked, and the soaking water is strained into the pot.

Worth knowing

• — Paprika goes into a pan off the heat. On a hot one it turns bitter in seconds.
• — Kapustnica is better the next day. That is why it is made ahead — on the 23rd for the 24th.
• — Very sour kraut can be rinsed, but not wrung dry: some of the acidity is needed, or the soup is merely smoky.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

26 g

Fat

30 g

Carbs

26 g

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• Bryndzové halušky — Potato dumplings with sheep's brynza and bacon crackling. Slovakia's national dish.