To all the Srugim fans out there: Do you remember the episode where Yifat treated her friends with Marak Kubbeh Adom Soup for shabbat diner? Against the background of the Judean hills she sat with Re'ut and Amir delighting in the flavor of this amazing soup.
Fascinated by a dish I have not known of, I researched a little and I bumped into this incredible recipe. All the credit to "Le Cordon Jew" (www.soulandgone.com) from which site this recipe comes from.
And now, the recipe:
Red Kubbeh Soup/מרק קובה אדום/Marak Kubbeh Adom
Ingredients:
2 medium onions, diced
5 – 6 beets, chopped into large dice
1 bunch green (Swiss) chard, chiffonaded
Other vegetables of your choice (see below)
Chicken stock
1 small can tomato paste
1 – 2 tbsp sweet paprika
2 – 5 tbsp sugar
1 – 2 tbsp lemon salt (citric acid)
Salt and freshly-ground pepper to taste
Olive oil
Kubbeh
A few notes on the ingredients:
Chicken Stock: Use real chicken stock. Not from a can. Or use water. Don’t be an Israeli and use Osem powdered parve non-chicken “consommé” to flavour everything. It’s lazy and it makes what would be great food just that much worse. Every spoonful of Osem is another year the Messiah tarries.
Vegetables: Your choice of sweet potato, carrot, celery, pumpkin, squash or zucchini.
Spices: You may have noticed my spice measurements are vague at best. I find that it’s mostly useless to give exact measurements when it comes to soup. Water varies, stocks vary, paprika varies, vegetables vary heavily in flavour depending on season and origin; and it all conspires to render exactitude futile. Season as you go. When it’s right, you’ll know.
Lemon Salt: A somewhat less unnerving name for citric acid in its crystalline form. This stuff is highly concentrated sour; it’s wildly popular in Mediterranean cooking, but for some reason uncommon in the West. Buy online or head to a Mediterranean market or health food store.
Instructions:
1) In a 12 quart stockpot (or, you know, whatever), heat up several tablespoons of olive oil. Sauté the onions until translucent.
2) Add the beets. Stir mightily. Dig that neat color the beets turn the onions. Cook a couple minutes more.
3) Add the carrots and cook for another minute or two, then add tomato paste. Stir more. Cook another couple minutes, making sure not to let the paste burn.
4) Add enough chicken stock to fill the pot. If you don’t have quite enough, you can top it off with water. Not the end of the world. Don’t fucking add any stock powder or bouillon cubes.
5) Add all your seasonings, the chard, and long-cooking vegetables (carrots, celery, etc.) Save quicker-cooking root vegetables (like sweet potatoes) for a bit later. Simmer uncovered until the carrots are nearing done. Keep tasting and seasoning as you go. It should be sweet, sour and savory in about equal measures. Sort of like tomato soup but…you know…Jewish?
6) Once carrots are nearly cooked, add the quicker-cooking root vegetables. Continue simmering. Usually, I wind up simmering for a couple hours, give or take, from beginning to end. You want the liquid to reduce a bit to further concentrate the flavours.
7) Once all your vegetables are at their appropriate level of doneness, it’s time to add the kubbeh you worked so hard to make. However many you want:
They float. Cool, huh?
Continue simmering with the kubbeh for another twenty minutes. Make sure the seasoning is how you want it.
8) After the twenty minutes of kubbeh-simmerin’, remove the soup from heat and let it cool. Then refrigerate it overnight. The flavours develop and the kubbeh get a chance to become completely saturated through-and-through with the broth, making them ridiculously delicious. Texture and flavor-wise, they’re more like massive meatballs than dumplings. Once the next day rolls around, reheat the soup and savage it like you want to.
Try it: it is something out of this world (and into the Jewish Cooking Word), that is the reason I included it into the blog.
