Authentic Hungarian cauliflower soup
Servings 6 people
Ingredients
- 1 head cauliflower
- 3 carrots
- 2 parsnip
- 1 stalk celery, or a small piece of celery root
- ½ cup chopped parsley
- 1 medium onion
- 2 L cold water
- 1½ tsp salt
- pepper
- 1 tsp red paprika
- 1 tbsp canola oil
- 2 tbsp sour cream
- 1 tbsp flour
Dumplings
- 1 egg
- 70 g flour - about ½ cup
- 3 tbsp water
- 1 pinch salt
Instructions
Making the soup
- Dice the onions, cut the carrots, parsnips into rounds or half moons, dice the celery stalk (or celery root), chop the parsley, and cut the cauliflower into florets
- Sauté the onion in a medium to large pot on medium. Once the onion is transparent, add the chopped carrots, parsnips and celery. Add about 3 tbsp of water, reduce the heat to medium low, cover and simmer for about 6-7 minutes. Stir it occasionally and add a bit of water if necessary.
- Once the veggies are fork tender, but not too soft, remove the pot from the heat, and add the 1 tbsp flour, the 1 tsp sweet paprika, and mix it together.
- Add 2 L ( 8 cups) cold water, the cauliflower florets, salt, pepper, and most of the chopped parsley (reserve some for garnish). Bring it to a boil, then let it simmer semi-covered on medium-low heat until the florets are fork tender.
- Once the dumplings are added and floating on the surface, remove the pot from the heat. See below for dumpling recipe and instructions.
- Optional but recommended: Mix 2 tbsp sour cream with the 2 tbsp cold water, then add 2 tbsp soup to it, and mix. Pour it into the soup, and stir.
Dumplings
- Heap the flour onto a small plate, and make a hole in the middle for the egg. Crack the egg in the middle, add a pinch of salt, and mix it. Add 3 tbsp of water to the mixture and stir it together until you get a smooth texture. If it is too watery, add a little bit more flour, if it is too dry, add a bit of water. You will get the good consistency once the dough forms a nice drop on the spoon without coming off easily.
- Bring the soup to boil. Wet the spoon in the soup, then get a small spoonful of dough, and dip it back in the sou, letting the dough fall off the spoon. Repeat this until you use all the dough. Stir the soup after about every 10 dumplings, especially scraping the bottom of the pot, as the dumplings ca tend to stick. They only need a few minutes of cooking time. Once the dumplings are floating on top, they are done.
Notes
- For a more watery soup skip adding flour to the soup
- For a thicker soup :
- add more flour to the root vegetables, or
- stir some flour to the sour cream mix. In this case put the soup back to the heat and cook it for another few minutes