Sächsische Kartoffelsuppe

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •Heavy 4 to 5 litre soup pot
• •Potato masher or sturdy wooden spoon
• •Sharp knife

Instructions

1. 1

   Start the roots

   Warm the lard in a heavy pot and soften the onion, leek, carrot, and celeriac for 8 minutes without browning them. You want the vegetables sweet and rounded, not fried dark, because this is a pale potato soup and burnt onion will take over the whole pot.

2. 2

   Add potato and broth

   Stir in the potatoes, bay leaf, marjoram, caraway if using, and the bacon rind if you have one, then pour in the stock. The liquid should just cover the vegetables; too much water makes a thin soup, and the potato starch has nothing to hold. Bring it to a gentle simmer, then runter mit der Temperatur, down with the temperature, so the potatoes cook through without breaking into gritty bits.

3. 3

   Simmer until soft

   Cook 25 to 30 minutes, until a potato chunk crushes easily against the side of the pot with a spoon. Do not mash early. Half-cooked potato gives you lumps with a raw centre and a cloudy broth, while fully cooked floury potato releases starch cleanly and thickens the soup by itself.

   Use floury potatoes, not waxy salad potatoes. A waxy potato holds its shape too well, which is good for Bratkartoffeln and wrong here, where the starch is the thickener.
4. 4

   Mash half the pot

   Remove the bay leaf and bacon rind. Crush roughly half the vegetables against the side of the pot with a potato masher or wooden spoon, leaving plenty of potato and carrot pieces whole. This is the Saxon trick: the mashed potato thickens the broth, the whole pieces keep the soup from becoming baby food. Nicht aus dem Glas, not from a packet.

5. 5

   Warm the sausage

   Add the sliced Wiener Würstchen or Bockwürste, if using, and let them warm gently for 5 minutes without boiling. Boil a sausage hard and it splits, leaks fat, and tastes tired. Gentle heat keeps it plump and lets the smoke season the soup.

6. 6

   Season and serve

   Taste only now, then season with salt, black pepper, and a pinch more marjoram. The stock, rind, and sausage all carry salt, so salting early is how a thrifty soup becomes a thirsty one. Ladle into deep bowls and finish with parsley if you like. Würzen, Fett, Salz zum Schluss.

Chef Tips

• •Buy floury potatoes, the kind that fall apart when boiled. They give the soup its body; waxy potatoes stay polite and leave you with broth and cubes.
• •A smoked bacon rind is enough. You don't need a mountain of meat, only a little smoke and fat to season the roots. Weggeworfen wird nichts.
• •Marjoram is the Saxon note. Add some during cooking and a small pinch at the end, because fresh heat wakes it up but a long hard boil makes it flat.
• •If you want it meatless, use a proper vegetable stock and add a spoon of butter at the end. Don't pretend it is the same as the smoked version; cook the meatless pot properly on its own terms.

Advance Preparation

• •The vegetables can be peeled and chopped up to a day ahead; keep the potatoes covered in cold water so they do not darken, then drain before cooking.
• •The soup keeps 3 days in the refrigerator and thickens as it stands. Reheat it gently with a splash of stock or water, because boiling it hard breaks the potato down too far.
• •Freeze it without the sausage if you can. Add fresh sliced sausage when reheating, so it stays plump instead of rubbery.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 570g)