Not Just Stew · The atlas · A working atlas of the world's cooking

Central Europe · Volume 39, The Vinegar Cure, the Seven Herbs and the Butter Letter

Soljanka

The GDR, and the east still

Soljanka, a sour and smoky soup of sliced sausage, ham, gherkins and peppers with a spoon of sour cream: a deep bowl of thick red orange soup with slices of pale pink sausage, diced ham, rings of gherkin and soft pepper, a white spoon of sour cream melting on top and a slice of lemon.

Illustration

Time
1 hour

The soup of the Soviet garrison, remade with East German sausage, as the GDR recipe sites tell it without a date. The pot is sourced in two parts: the sausages, gherkins and Letscho from one East German recipe, the base from another. Jagdwurst, the fine pork sausage, and Knacker, the smoked one, are the eastern pair.

As tradition built it

Serves a table. About an hour.

Ingredients

  • 350g Jagdwurst, diced
  • 150g salami, diced
  • 125g cooked ham, diced
  • 12 gherkins, sliced, with some of their brine
  • 2 jars Letscho
  • 100g tomato paste
  • 2 onions
  • 1 litre stock or water
  • 1 cup crème fraîche
  • 150g Schmand, to serve
  • ½ lemon, to serve

Method

  1. Fry the onion and the diced Jagdwurst, salami and ham until the fat runs and the edges colour.
  2. Add the tomato paste and fry it a minute, then the Letscho, the gherkins and brine and the stock or water.
  3. Simmer about half an hour, until the soup is thick and sour.
  4. Stir in the crème fraîche, and serve each bowl with a spoon of Schmand and a slice of lemon.

What a modern chef changes

The sour built from brine, the sausage from a butcher

Rung 1

Method

  1. Make the Letscho: peppers and tomatoes and onion stewed down in lard with paprika, which is the Hungarian stew in EU-38 that the bloc sent north; the jar is the GDR's and the pan is older.
  2. Measure the gherkin brine as the soup's acid, and taste before any lemon.
  3. A smoked sausage from a butcher who makes one, in place of the three cold cuts; a soup of sliced luncheon meat is the canteen version and tastes like it.
  4. A spoon of smoked paprika in the onion gives the smoke the Knacker brought.
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