My Grandmother's Bean Soup

This soup recipe is something my grandmother made at least once every couple weeks or so. It is rustic German/Hungarian fare, the kind of soup the wives would serve their farmer husbands after a long day's work in the field. If memory serves she would use any number of different hams in this depending on what she had on hand ... cottage roll, smoked ham , etc but I pretty much always make this with a simple old fashioned smoked ham, the kind you find cut in half and vacuum sealed in a heavy plastic wrap. This soup is hearty, VERY high in fiber and absolutely the best on a cool fall or winter day and it makes for a filling main course. 


I have seen many different ham and bean based soups online but never one quite like this and trust me, this recipe is worth trying even if you don't usually like a bean soup. I can pretty much guarantee it will be a new taste experience and in my opinion one well worth the experiment. My husband usually hates pea/bean soups primarily for their texture but also their taste, however he loves this soup in spite of his general bias. 


I have changed her original recipe somewhat both to modernize it, personalize it and to be more precise. Most of my grandmother's recipes were done more by *feel* than by exact measure so that last one was kind of important especially if you want to accurately track this for calorie counting purposes ;) So while this isn't "exactly" like her original recipe it faithfully recreates it so anyone can get the same results and I usually point out any changes I made to the original recipe, and why, in the description. I hope you enjoy it :)


Ingredients:

• 1 cup white navy beans
• 1/2 cup lentils, any color (optional but recommended, I use a blend of red and green lentils (no idea why, I just usually have them on hand) about 1/4 c each, lentils were not in the original recipe but I like their addition)
• 3 cups water
• 1 old fashioned half ham (they vary in weight but about 600-800g is good)
• 6 cups stock ( my grandmother would probably just have used all water but I think using stock takes this from just good to out of this world. In the past I would use a mix of chicken stock and water but these days I use all stock, whatever I have on hand, chicken, vegetable, ham ... I use my homemade stock but bought is fine as well ... about 2 cartons ... I'd recommend chicken or vegetable, you can top up with water as needed)
• 1 large (jumbo) or 2 medium onions
• garlic 3-4 cloves (to taste)
• 1 tsp salt (optional depending on whether you use sodium free stocks or not, plus bouillon is sometimes salty ... reserve salt to the end and taste soup before adding)
• 5 large carrots
• 3 Tbsp butter ( traditionally my grandmother would use lard or bacon fat for this and if I have it I do use bacon grease for superior results but any semi hard fat will do and in the absence of bacon fat butter is a good substitute)
• 3 Tbsp Flour ( I used to use 2 Tbsp each of butter and flour but my Tbsp were always heaping so when I modified the recipe to reflect exact measurements,  I just changed the amount from 2 to 3 Tbsp to reflect that, you can just eyeball the amounts, no need to exact measure if you aren't strict calorie counting  )
• 3 Tbsp Paprika (like above I believe the original recipe specified 2 Tbsp but 3 works well and is a major flavour component for this soup. I recommend Hungarian Paprika)
• 1 cup water (or as needed)
• 1 Tbsp Better Than Bouillon Paste (chicken, vegetable or ham flavor) as needed (optional to taste)
• 1 kg bag of broad or extra broad EGG noodles ... you want a noodle that can stand up in this soup and no egg or no yolk noodles just aren't strong enough to do the job ... this is hearty peasant fare and it requires a hearty noodle ... trust me, I tried a non egg noodle once and I regretted it ... they broke up into tiny bits in the soup and were basically just mush ... awful.

Directions:

1. Soak the beans and lentils overnight (or for several hours) in a large dutch oven style pot in 3 cups water. They can soak up a lot of water so you can add more as needed. Do not discard this water after the soaking is ended just add to it as directed below. If you forget to soak the beans overnight you can start early in the morning or just add some extra simmer time for the soup  ... the beans just take awhile to soften up ... and to lose their gassy properties ;)  Pre soaking just helps with that, it's not a biggie if you forget.
2. Add ham with juices to the beans and water
3. Add broth enough to cover the ham up to 6 cups ( I don't generally measure this, I just use a 1 liter jar (which is about 3 cups per jar) or two of my home made stock either chicken or ham) I just use enough to cover the ham and add more stock or water as needed to maintain the level while simmering.
4. Add onion (roughly chopped in quarters) and minced or pureed garlic (I use my own roasted/pureed garlic that I always have on hand in the fridge but you can buy handy tubes at the store as well)
5.  Simmer 3-4 hours ... I don't actually time this, I just simmer this until supper time but I usually start before lunch. I am not sure if a long simmer is even needed much beyond softening and degassing the beans I just do it because that's the way I've always done it ... and my soup always tastes delicious ... course it might taste delicious even with a shorter simmer time ... who knows ...
6. About an hour and a half before serving I like to remove the meat to a plate (reserve for later) and use my immersion blender to puree the beans and onions. This makes the soup rich and thick, if you don't want it quite as thick you can strain out a few of the beans (maybe half) if you do not have an immersion blender just smash some beans against the side of the pot to puree them a bit or you can strain them all out (this will yield a thinner but still delicious soup. I generally just blend the whole lot, it makes for a more flavourful rich hearty soup and makes this soup a VERY good source of fiber.
7. Add the sliced carrots at this point and cook until carrots are soft. If you like you can use 1 small bag of baby carrots instead of the 5 raw field carrots.
8. While the carrots are cooking prepare your roue. In a small saucepan melt butter (or other fat) over medium heat. Add flour and paprika and cook a minute or two to remove the 'raw' taste. It should look like a thick paste. Slowly (and carefully) add water, stirring constantly until you have a thick but pourable roue and slowly stir in to soup to thicken. Rinse all the roue into the pot with some extra rinses of the roue pot with water ;) 
9. Just before serving. Place the ham front side down on a cutting board and slicing down from the top following the contour of the ham, to remove the tough outside rind. Then slice and chop the remaining meat into small soup appropriate bite sized pieces and return the meat to the soup pot.
10. Taste and adjust seasoning with either salt or chicken/ham/vegetable "Better than Bouillon" paste.
11. In the meantime prepare 1 bag of extra broad or broad EGG noodles according to package directions. Strain noodles and add to soup.
12. Serve. 

This makes a LOT of soup maybe 16 bowls. We typically have at least 2 bowls when this is served as a main course however so this would easily feed 8 people but more might be stretching it unless you added an accompaniment like maybe a fresh loaf of bread and cheese on the side. Each bowl (1 cup) has roughly 215 calories (depending on how much meat you used of course but the amount given was roughly for an 800g ham) and over 5g of fiber plus the beans and lentils are a good source of iron :) It freezes fairly well, although perhaps better without the noodles added, so if you plan to freeze this perhaps pass the noodles on the side for individual diners to add to their bowls as their own preferences dictate then freeze the remaining soup noodle free for later. 


You may need to thin the soup after it thaws with a little chicken broth or water, as it tends to thicken up even more as it sits. I'd recommend re heating this slowly in either the microwave or on the stove before you add any extra stock/water though since heating does thin this a bit, especially if you have used home made stock as opposed to store bought, as the home made stock is sometimes a bit more gelatinous and thick when cold and the soup can appear deceivingly thick until heated through.


Like I said this is a staple soup around our house and it is perhaps the most requested soup as well. Definitely worth the effort. Nose runningly delicious on a cold winter day. Have some tissue handy ;)