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Oravská kapustnica: creamy sauerkraut soup with smoked pork
Orava-style sauerkraut soup with smoked ribs, sausage, and mushrooms, thickened with cream and flour and served with potatoes. Serves 8.
Save on PinterestRecipe at a glance
- Prep time
- 25 min
- Cook time
- 1 hr 45 min
- Total time
- 2 hr 10 min
- Servings
- 8 servings
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Cuisine
- Slovak
Oravská kapustnica is a thick sauerkraut soup from Slovakia's Orava region, made with smoked meat, sausage, and cream. Instead of a paprika roux, it is thickened with a mixture of cream and flour. Simmer the sauerkraut with smoked ribs, dried mushrooms, and whole sausage, season with garlic and marjoram, and serve over boiled potatoes, as is customary in Orava.
According to the Orava Museum, mushroom sauerkraut soup was the most common version served on Christmas Eve, and meat was not eaten until after midnight. In some parts of Orava, smoked fish was also added to the soup.
Ingredients
Soup
Cream thickener and seasonings
For serving
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Instructions
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Simmer the smoked ribs with mushrooms
Rinse the dried mushrooms in a strainer under running water. Place the smoked ribs in a large pot, add the mushrooms and black peppercorns, and pour in 2.5 l cold water.
Bring to a boil, skim off the foam, and simmer, covered, over low heat for 1 hour, until the meat begins to pull away from the bones.
Add the sauerkraut and sausage
If the sauerkraut has long strands, chop it a few times on a cutting board. Add it to the pot along with its juice, add the whole sausage, and simmer for another 35 minutes, until the sauerkraut is tender.
Cook the potatoes
Meanwhile, peel the potatoes, cut them into quarters, and boil in salted water until tender, about 20 minutes. Drain and keep warm, covered.
Cut up the meat and sausage
Transfer the ribs and sausage from the soup to a cutting board. Remove the meat from the bones and cut it into small pieces. Slice the sausage into rounds.
Prepare the onion and cream thickener
Melt the lard in a skillet and cook the finely chopped onion until golden. In a bowl, whisk the cream and flour until smooth, then gradually stir in 2 ladlefuls of hot soup, stirring constantly.
Thicken and season the soup
Stir the cooked onion and its lard into the soup, then pour in the cream mixture, stirring constantly. Add the garlic crushed with a pinch of salt, the marjoram, and the chopped meat and sausage. Simmer over low heat for 10 minutes.
Taste the soup and add salt as needed.
Serve with potatoes
Divide the warm potatoes among deep soup bowls and ladle the hot sauerkraut soup with meat and sausage over them.
Tip: Cook the sausage whole and slice it only at the end so it stays juicy and releases less fat into the soup. If the soup tastes too sour, dilute it with a little of the potato cooking water.
Nutrition facts
Approximate values per serving, calculated from the ingredients
- Energy
- 659 kcal
- Protein
- 24 g
- Carbohydrates
- 37 g
- of which sugars
- 5.2 g
- Fat
- 47 g
- of which saturates
- 20 g
- Fiber
- 7.0 g
- Salt
- 5.7 g
Calculated from the raw ingredients, without frying oil. Where an amount is “to taste”, typical amounts are used. Food composition: USDA FoodData Central and product labels.
This recipe was translated from the Slovak original: Oravská kapustnica s údeným mäsom, klobásou a smotanou
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