90 minutes · Meat · Soup · For confident cooks

Palócleves

Name: Palócleves
Total time: 90 min
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Hungarian
Ingredients: 1⅛ lb pork (leg meat, diced; lamb, veal, turkey or chicken also used); 14⅛ oz green beans (cut into 2–3 cm pieces; fresh, frozen or jarred); 3 potatoes (peeled and diced); 2 carrot (sliced or diced); 1 onion (finely diced, sweated as the base); 2 cloves garlic (finely or coarsely chopped); 2 tbsp lard (for sweating; traditionally lard); 1 tbsp Paprika powder (sweet, stirred in off the heat); 1 tsp caraway (ground); 1 bay leaf (simmered with the meat); ¾ cup sour cream (for thickening, extra for serving); 1 tbsp flour (whisked into the sour cream); 6⅓ cups water (for topping up; stock as alternative); salt, to taste, in stages; black pepper, to taste; 1 bunch Dill (finely chopped, stirred in at the end (optional)); 1 bunch parsley (chopped, for sprinkling (optional)); 1 tomato (diced, for the lecsó base (optional)); 1 green pepper (diced, for the lecsó base (optional)); 3 tbsp vinegar (for souring, only after boiling stops (optional)); 1 parsley root (diced, cooked with the root vegetables (optional))

For 6 servings · US units

Hungarian soup of pork, green beans and sour cream

Palócleves is one of those Hungarian soups that stands in for a whole meal: cubes of meat, green beans, potatoes and carrots, gently braised and finished with sour cream. Caraway and sweet paprika give it its familiar warmth, dill or parsley the fresh note at the end. Serve it with fresh bread and an extra spoonful of sour cream in the bowl — it's good all summer and autumn, and best of all cooked in a kettle over an open fire.

Servings6

Ingredients

1⅛ lbporkleg meat, diced; lamb, veal, turkey or chicken also used
14⅛ ozgreen beanscut into 2–3 cm pieces; fresh, frozen or jarred
3potatoespeeled and diced
2carrotsliced or diced
1onionfinely diced, sweated as the base
2 clovesgarlicfinely or coarsely chopped
2 tbsplardfor sweating; traditionally lard
1 tbspPaprika powdersweet, stirred in off the heat
1 tspcarawayground
1bay leafsimmered with the meat
¾ cupsour creamfor thickening, extra for serving
1 tbspflourwhisked into the sour cream
6⅓ cupswaterfor topping up; stock as alternative
saltto taste, in stages
black pepperto taste
1 bunchDillfinely chopped, stirred in at the end (optional)
1 bunchparsleychopped, for sprinkling (optional)
1tomatodiced, for the lecsó base (optional)
1green pepperdiced, for the lecsó base (optional)
3 tbspvinegarfor souring, only after boiling stops (optional)
1parsley rootdiced, cooked with the root vegetables (optional)

Method

Pat the pork leg dry and cut it into even cubes. Finely chop the onion and garlic, peel and dice the potatoes, slice the carrots, and cut or snap the green beans into 2–3 cm lengths.
Heat the lard or oil in a large pot and sweat the onion over gentle heat until translucent, without letting it colour. Add the garlic and let it soften briefly. If you like, roast diced tomato and green pepper along with it for a lecsó base.
Add the diced meat and fry, stirring, until it has turned white all over.
Pull the pot off the heat and stir in the ground paprika so it doesn't turn bitter. Season with caraway, salt and pepper, drop in the bay leaf and deglaze with a little water.
Cover and braise over low heat, topping up with a splash of water now and then, until the meat is almost tender — around 40 to 50 minutes, depending on the cut.
Pour in water or stock and add the potatoes, carrots and, if using, diced parsley root. Fresh or frozen beans go in now; pre-cooked beans from a jar only in the last few minutes. Simmer uncovered for about 20 minutes, until the vegetables are tender.
Fish out the bay leaf before thickening. Whisk the flour into the sour cream until smooth, then stir in hot soup liquid a spoonful at a time to bring it up to temperature. Stir the mixture into the soup and let it cook for a few minutes, until no taste of raw flour remains.
Season with salt and pepper, scatter with finely chopped dill or parsley, and serve hot with fresh bread.

Tips and variations

Lamb from the leg or shoulder, browned in lard, works just as well as pork — or veal, turkey and chicken for a leaner pot. If you like it sharper, stir in a few spoonfuls of vinegar at the end, but only once the soup has stopped boiling, or the cream will curdle. The sour cream mixture can be loosened with milk or cooking cream and seasoned with marjoram and hot paprika paste; parsley is a fine substitute for dill at the finish. It turns out particularly well in a kettle over an open fire — bring it to the table with hot paprika and an extra dollop of sour cream.

Allergens

Contains: Cereals containing gluten, Milk (including lactose)

Not every ingredient in this recipe has been checked, so nothing is promised as free from.

These notes follow from this recipe's ingredient list. Ready-made products and brands may contain further allergens — please check the packaging yourself.

Something not right?

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The person behind it

Kálmán Mikszáth · 1847–1910 · Writer and journalist

The name on this dish belongs to a man who spent his life telling stories – preferably the way they might have happened. "A story is always true when you hear it from a good storyteller," Kálmán Mikszáth wrote, "only not quite the way it actually occurred." For a table where people eat and talk, that is a decent patron saint.

He was born on 16 January 1847 in Szklabonya, into a comfortable family of the Hungarian lesser nobility, with a long line of Lutheran preachers on his father's side. He spent his first ten years in the village, and that childhood shadowed everything he later wrote. School in Rimaszombat and at the Lutheran lyceum in Selmecbánya, then law, then a post as juror and legal clerk in Balassagyarmat under the magistrate Mátyás Mauks – whose daughter Ilona he married in secret in 1873, against her family's wishes.

What followed was close to ruin. In 1875 no publisher would take his work, his wife fell ill and went home to her parents, and to spare her the poverty he forced through a divorce. For three years he lived alone in Budapest, sick and destitute. A newspaper job in Szeged pulled him out; from 1881 he wrote for the Pesti Hírlap for a quarter of a century. The two story collections of 1881 and 1882 – on his Slovak kinsmen and the good Palóc people – made his name. On the last day of 1882 he married Ilona Mauks a second time.

From 1887 he sat in the Hungarian parliament, and turned his parliamentary sketches into a literary form of his own. In 1896 he was elected president of the Budapest journalists' association, founded to defend the freedom of the press. "St Peter's Umbrella" made him famous far beyond Hungary; the Noszty novel became his sharpest verdict on a gentry class clinging to prestige it could no longer afford. He bought an estate at Horpács and withdrew there. Twelve days after a national jubilee in his honour, on 28 May 1910, he died in Budapest. A square in the Palace District still carries his name.

Sources: Kálmán Mikszáth – Wikipedia · Mikszáth Kálmán tér · Einzelne Maerchen - detlef-heinsohn.de · Kálmán Mikszáth Zitate und Sprüche · Mikszáth Kálmán (1847 - 1910)