My grandmother often makes this soup for Sunday lunches, when the entire family has lunch at her place. Originally, this soup was only cooked when there was a "kermis" or fair in town, which called for a celebration. The celebratory part of this soup in those days was the use of meat, as in the past -for example during the war- meat wasn't always readily available. Luckily, we now don't have to wait for the fair to come to our village in order to enjoy this hearty soup!
Ingredients
300 gr of meat to create the stock, preferably a piece of shank (beef)
4 large stalks of celery
2 large leeks (only use the white part)
2 mid-sized carrots
(optional) 2 tomatoes
macaroni
Salt
Pepper
Laurel leaf
Preparation:
1. Fill a large casserole with water and add the the shank (with bone and the oh so important marrow). Often this soup meat is eaten afterwards (it's delicious cold with some mustard, and it also goes very well with the fried young potatoes described in a previous post.), and if you do wish to eat it afterwards, it's preferable to add the meat to the water once the water has reached its boiling point. If you don't plan on eating it, you can add the meat to the water from the beginning. Leave the meat to boil for about an hour (depending on the meat) so that the meat has been thoroughly cooked. Remove the meat from the casserole. Keep the stock boiling.
2. Finely chop up all the vegetables, the carrots let's say about 0,5 cm thick whereas the celery and leeks can be anywhere between 0,5 and 1 cm. The tomatoes can be cut into larger chunks, as otherwise they would desintegrate rapidly.
3. First add the sliced carrots and leave them to boil for about 15 minutes. Then add the chopped celery, and boil for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the leeks, macaronis and tomatoes. Leave this to boil for another 5 minutes and then turn off the fire.
4. Serve hot, with little meatballs; Belgians put little meatballs in almost all their soups. They even voted tomato soup with meatballs to be their all-time favorite dish! These meatballs are made with ground beef and pork, breadcrumbs and eggs. I will put up the full recipe for making these small ones as well as the standard, larger ones tomorrow.
Ingredients
300 gr of meat to create the stock, preferably a piece of shank (beef)
4 large stalks of celery
2 large leeks (only use the white part)
2 mid-sized carrots
(optional) 2 tomatoes
macaroni
Salt
Pepper
Laurel leaf
Preparation:
1. Fill a large casserole with water and add the the shank (with bone and the oh so important marrow). Often this soup meat is eaten afterwards (it's delicious cold with some mustard, and it also goes very well with the fried young potatoes described in a previous post.), and if you do wish to eat it afterwards, it's preferable to add the meat to the water once the water has reached its boiling point. If you don't plan on eating it, you can add the meat to the water from the beginning. Leave the meat to boil for about an hour (depending on the meat) so that the meat has been thoroughly cooked. Remove the meat from the casserole. Keep the stock boiling.
2. Finely chop up all the vegetables, the carrots let's say about 0,5 cm thick whereas the celery and leeks can be anywhere between 0,5 and 1 cm. The tomatoes can be cut into larger chunks, as otherwise they would desintegrate rapidly.
3. First add the sliced carrots and leave them to boil for about 15 minutes. Then add the chopped celery, and boil for another 10 minutes. Finally, add the leeks, macaronis and tomatoes. Leave this to boil for another 5 minutes and then turn off the fire.
4. Serve hot, with little meatballs; Belgians put little meatballs in almost all their soups. They even voted tomato soup with meatballs to be their all-time favorite dish! These meatballs are made with ground beef and pork, breadcrumbs and eggs. I will put up the full recipe for making these small ones as well as the standard, larger ones tomorrow.
2 comments:
Hola! Nice and hearty soup! I love soups in winter Josmas but now, it's a bit too hot here, I'll save it for colder days :D
You are tagged... follow the link and see http://recipespicbypic.blogspot.com/2008/06/salmon-in-aromatic-pickle-and-meme.html
Hope you don't mind and play along!
Thanks Nuria!
Yeah I would too, except for the fact that it's rainy and not that warm here at this point :s When it's warm I'd much rather pour myself a nice cold cup of gazpacho!!! Love it!
Thanks for tagging me! I'll see if I can come up with something tasty!
(btw my real name is Jan, Josmans is merely my nickname...)
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