bunny?

...gonna kick the darkness 'till it bleeds daylight... musings of a hungarian in texas

©2003 by Annamaria Kovacs. All contents of this blog are the property of the author. Use with written permission only.

Monday, July 18, 2005

Hungarian Cold Sour Cherry Soup

Okay: it's STILL hot in Texas (what's new?), I am STILL hesitant to spend more time next to the oven than necessary, and The Husband and The Lizard Queen kept bugging me about this soup, so Sunday night I finally made it the first time in the US...now that we discovered that the local Kroger stocks real canned sour cherry in the International section.

You will need:

1 24 oz. glass jar of sour cherries, already stemmed and pitted, drained. You can use the light syrup as a cold fruit drink, it's traditional
6 cups of water (by the way, if in a hard water area like us, do everyone in your family a favor and invest in either a BRITA pitcher or a filter on your kitchen tap. The results of using filtered water for coffee, soups and just plain ol' drinking water are rather dramatic...)
2 tablespoons of sugar
pinch of salt
1 tbsp. of real lemon juice (or more if you prefer it more sour)
4-5 cloves
1 piece of cinnamon (about 2-inches long, or 1 tsp. ground. Traditionally it is the Ceylon variety that is used in Eastern Europe, I am not sure how Korintje would taste..or even Vietnamese..hmmm. I'd expect you'd need less lemon as those are somewhat more lemony in their middle tones)
1 pint of heavy whipping cream
2 tablespoons of sour cream
1 heaping tablespoon of flour (unbleached is just fine)

Method:
1. Place cinnamon and cloves into 1 cup of water and prepare a spice reduction by cooking over gentle heat (just boiling) for about 8-10 minutes. Strain, reserve water in a larger pot.
2. Add remaining water, sour cherries, lemon juice, salt and sugar. Bring to a boil and cook for about 8 minutes or until cherries are just tender.
3. Mix half pint of the cream, the sour cream and the flour in a small bowl. Ladle some of the hot cherry liquid into it, mix well until smooth and pour back to soup while it is off the heat source. Mix fast and well until smooth.
4. Return to heat and cook JUST until it starts to thicken a bit, about 2 minutes. Stir continuously to avoid curdling. Taste and season, if needed with more lemon or sugar.
5. Pull off heat and cool first in a cool place in your kitchen then in fridge or freezer until totally cold.
6. Whip the remaining cream until stiff: serve soup with dollops of whipped cream and some sprinkles of cinnamon if desired.

VARIATIONS: This same recipe can be used also with strawberries, peaches or with raspberries and blackberries in a 1:1 ratio. In these variations, you can puree some of the fruit after cooking to intensify the flavor.

Labels:

23 Comments:

At 11:12 AM, Blogger Autumn said...

mmm.. So, is this the REAL version or did you opt for the Martial Arts thing and leave key ingredients/methods out so that it cannot be reproduced exactly like your own?

Hehe, call it "Secret Recipes"...

 
At 11:12 AM, Blogger Autumn said...

mmm.. So, is this the REAL version or did you opt for the Martial Arts thing and leave key ingredients/methods out so that it cannot be reproduced exactly like your own?

Hehe, call it "Secret Recipes"...

 
At 11:31 AM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Well, it would be real silly of me to tell you that now, wouldn''t it? Just have to try it and see if it works...:-)

 
At 12:37 PM, Blogger Autumn said...

~giggle~

I can do that. I'll feed it to my family and see how they react... ;)

 
At 4:04 PM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Cool...lemme know how it goes.

 
At 4:39 PM, Blogger Autumn said...

You bet. :)

 
At 7:20 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anna, any idea if these are the same sour cherries as one would use in Turkish sour cherry drink?

IF so - what are the cans labeled as? We have Kroger owned stores, but no Kroger named stores.

BTW - check my forum - a really nice lemon sorbet recipe went up... :D

 
At 8:18 AM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Chris-I've seen the sorbet recipe last night...yum. Gotta try.
The sour cherries I used are of Bulgarian origin but imported to the USa by I think a Californian firm. The glass jar''s brand name is ZerGu:t (with the umlaut over the 'u') and is nothing but sour cherries, pitter, sugar and water. Nothing else. Very yummy.

 
At 2:37 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

K - grocery run later..will see if i can find them.

Today I went to an orchard and picked peaches, apples and blackberries.

 
At 2:42 PM, Blogger Annamaria said...

I hate you, Wichita...
:-P

 
At 4:30 PM, Blogger Autumn said...

ooooooh.... That sounds fun. Anna, I read in the newspaper of a place close to here that you can go and pcik blueberries from. I can try to find it again if you want...

 
At 4:37 PM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Please do Audie...and thanks! You know how much a certain Husband likes blueberries...:-)

 
At 5:06 PM, Blogger Autumn said...

hehehe. Yes, there is that. Guess I won't tell him he can't come..:P hehe. I'll look it up for you guys. :)

 
At 8:12 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Heh - ended up being about 7 lbs of sliced peaches that went into the freezer - even fresh/frozen they're miles better than the stuff from the store. We primarily use them in ice cream and sorbet - though occasionally we'll make cobbler or a peach upside down cake with them. If you want any, I'm sure I could probably manage to bring a pound or two down....

 
At 8:48 AM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Ooo...peach cobbler...so you coming down for the test then?
::plans menu for weekend::

 
At 12:11 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Anna,

As of right now, it looks like Katie and I can come down, assuming its all good with you. I have another pound of turkish tea that needs dropped off as well, I also have a pound of freshly picked frozen blackberries - slightly tart as they still have some red on them.

I'll give ya'll a call this weekend probably and we can hammer things out - I can read your blog from work, but can't get the comments to load from there. go figure.

 
At 8:23 AM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Cool! We should be home Friday night and Saturday evening as well...lemme know what you guys want to eat! ;-)

 
At 11:42 AM, Blogger Martin Lindeskog said...

Szia Annamaria!

I have to test this soup to keep up with my food memories from my time in Sopron. I bet that you have a cookbook by Gundel! Ah, I miss the wine...

All the Best,

Martin Lindeskog - American in spirit.
Gothenburg, Sweden.

P.S. Is Kóvacs (smith) a common surname? I have a friend named László Kóvacs from Sopron. I know that Laci is a common first name. I got to know three "Lacis" at the company I worked for.

 
At 11:53 AM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Martin- thanks for stopping by...
Kovacs literally means ''Smith'' so yeah, it''s pretty m uch all over the place.
Actually the Gundel book I got for my friends as a gift...this recipe is mostly from memory using the recipe my family used to make, and another Hungarian cookbook I picked up when visiting back home (gotta find the title and author later when I am not at work...)
And do check back later: I am posting the recipe for Turos Csusza (the cottage cheese-sour cream pasta dish) soon...I made it last night. Talk about memories...:-)

 
At 3:31 PM, Blogger Martin Lindeskog said...

Annamaria:

Hi Mrs. "Smith"! When you talk about Turos, I start thinking of the first time I tested the sweet cream cheese snack covered with chocolate, called Túró Rudi. Do you have recipes on Hungarian cheese bread / brötchen? I brought with me tomato, paprika, and chile pepper seeds. I have created a photo gallery of the plants.

 
At 4:05 PM, Blogger Annamaria said...

Wow, those are some good looking paprika plants, congratulations--that reminds me to get some seeds with me when I go back in September, and I can check the cheese bread recipe amongst my old cookbooks I left with my sister as well.
Did you like the Rudi? No one non-Hungarian, including my husband, liked it before, so you'd be the first...

 
At 6:26 PM, Blogger Martin Lindeskog said...

The Taltós paprika plant has grown well and there are some bell peppers, but the Albaregia and Èdesalma plants haven't produced any peppers yet. I wondered about the Túri at first, but I must say that I liked the taste of it. It was special, but good as a quick snack. Talking about snack, I miss the "power bars" with müsli and puffed rice.

Have you had Zwack Unicum lately?

I look forward to the bread recipes! Have a nice trip! Will you attend any wine festivals?

 
At 1:33 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

Just got back from my 2nd summer in BT and had a taste for meggyleves. Is it ok for me to use your recipe? Had the most delicious cold raspberry soup at a restaurant.
Thanks, Sue

 

Post a Comment

<< Home