Hyldebaersuppe

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy-bottomed pot, 3 litre
• •Fine-mesh sieve
• •Whisk or hand-held electric whisk
• •Ladle

Instructions

1. 1

   Strip the berries

   Work the elderberries off their stems with the tines of a fork, dragging through each cluster until only berries are left in the bowl. Take your time with this. The stems contain compounds that are mildly toxic raw and bitter once cooked, so you want them out completely. Only the berries go in the pot. If you are working with frozen berries from last summer's harvest, strip them while they are still frozen. They snap off the stems more cleanly that way.

   Hold the stem end over the bowl and draw the fork downward. The ripe berries drop. The green and under-ripe ones cling. Pick those out too and throw them away. Only deep purple-black berries make good soup.
2. 2

   Simmer with spice

   Put the berries, the litre of water, the cinnamon stick, and the cloves into a heavy pot. Bring it to a gentle simmer and cook for twenty minutes, stirring now and then. The berries will collapse and bleed their color into the water until the pot turns a dark inky purple, almost black at the edges. The cinnamon and cloves need this time to open up and settle into the liquid. Rush the simmer and the spices stay locked in themselves; give them twenty honest minutes and they unfold.

3. 3

   Strain the broth

   Set a fine-mesh sieve over a clean pot and pour the contents through, pressing gently on the solids with the back of a ladle to coax out every last drop of purple juice. Don't push too hard. The elderberry seeds are tiny and bitter, and if you crush them into the liquid the soup will taste harsh. Gentle pressure gives you the color and the flavor without the bitterness. Discard the spent berries, the cinnamon stick, and the cloves.

   If your sieve is not fine enough, line it with a piece of muslin or a clean tea towel. The soup should be clear and glossy, not muddy.
4. 4

   Add the apple

   Return the strained liquid to a gentle simmer. Add the sliced apple, 100g of the sugar, and the lemon juice. Cook for about eight minutes, until the apple slices turn translucent at the edges but still hold their shape. You want them soft enough to give way on the spoon, never collapsing into mush. Taste the broth. If it needs more sweetness, add sugar a spoonful at a time until the balance between sweet and tart sits right on your tongue. Elderberries vary in sharpness from one harvest to the next, so the season decides how much sugar the soup needs, not the recipe.

5. 5

   Thicken the soup

   Stir the potato starch and the cold water together in a small cup until smooth. Pour the slurry into the simmering soup in a slow stream while stirring constantly. Within a minute the soup will go glossy and gain a little body, coating the back of the spoon with a soft sheen. This isn't a thick soup, it's a soup with just enough weight to carry the cream without collapsing under it. Let it bubble for thirty seconds more to cook out the raw starch, then take the pot off the heat.

   Potato starch is traditional and gives a cleaner finish than cornflour, which can leave a faint chalky edge. If you only have cornflour, use it, but simmer for a full minute after adding.
6. 6

   Whip the cream

   While the soup rests, whip the cold cream with the spoonful of sugar until it holds soft peaks. Not stiff. You want the cream to fall slowly off the spoon, keeping its shape for a moment before settling. Stiff cream sits on the soup like a hat and refuses to meet it. Soft cream melts into the hot surface in streaks of pink, and that meeting is the whole point of the dish.

7. 7

   Serve the contrast

   Ladle the hot soup into deep bowls, making sure every bowl gets its share of apple slices suspended in the dark liquid. Spoon a generous cloud of cold whipped cream into the centre of each bowl. Serve immediately, while the soup is steaming hot and the cream is still cold enough to shock it. Pass the tvebakker alongside for dipping. You'll know when it's right because the first spoonful carries hot, cold, sweet, tart, and spiced all at once, and the table goes quiet for a moment. Tak for mad.

Chef Tips

• •Elderberries must be cooked, never eaten raw. The ripe berries are safe once they've had their twenty minutes in the pot, but raw berries and every part of the stem and leaf contain compounds that cause stomach upset. Strip and simmer, and the dish is completely safe.
• •If you can't forage your own, frozen elderberries are sold in Scandinavian shops and good delis. Dried elderberries also work, use about 150g and soak them in the cooking water for an hour before simmering.
• •A Jutland tradition pairs hyldebaersuppe with a small spoonful of raspberry jam swirled through the soup just before the cream goes on. It sounds like too much but it isn't. The raspberry sharpens the elderberry in a way that feels right on the coldest nights.
• •Leftover soup is good cold the next day, almost like a drinking yogurt without the yogurt. Don't bother whipping cream for the second serving; a simple pour of cold cream does the job.

Advance Preparation

• •The soup itself keeps for four days in the fridge and reheats beautifully in a pot over a low flame. Don't boil it again, just bring it up to a gentle steam.
• •Freeze the strained elderberry base without the apple or the starch and you have the beginning of the soup ready for any cold evening. Defrost, add apple and sugar, thicken, and finish with cream.
• •If you foraged the berries yourself in August, strip them from the stems before freezing. It is a hundred times easier to do this while the berries are fresh than to try to separate them from frozen clusters later.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 500g)