Hot days in Czech Republic are right days for summer vegetable soup or in other words – beef broth with vegetables and homemade “crumbling noodles”. To prepare a really good broth may seem like a banality, but to be really successful, you need to take really good care while preparing. And… At the end, a clear, strong – tasting soup should is prepared with a slow and long cooking. The water should not be constantly cooked but only occasionally bubbling at about 95°C. You can prepare the broth from almost anything, but without good quality food and with the right amount it will never be strong enough 🙂
Bones are very important for broth, mainly marrow of bones. Marrow gives the taste to the whole soup. Good marrow bones should not contain joint parts. They are an excellent base for a great and tasty broth, but can be used as a basis for sauces. Bones can be cooked for several hours, but cooking about two hours is enough.
What do you need for soup:
500 g of beef meat with bones
root vegetables – 1 carrot, 1 cellery root, 1 parsley root
1 onion
3 pieces of bay leaf
salt and whole pepper
What do you need for crumbling noodles:
1 cup of flour (with coarse grains – good is for example corn one)
1 egg
pinch of salt
When you have all ingredients, take a bit pot, clean all vegetables, put them into the pot with beef and start cooking. Sound easy, does not it? 🙂 However, making a good beef broth is time consuming. Ideal bones are for example ribs, chest, harp or hook. Beef chest is a part of the rib of the sternum, there is lean beef to give the soup the necessary storng taste. If you pick the harp you should be careful. It contains a spinal cord that can make the beef broth murky. It is common here in Czech Republic to cook beeth broth twice. Beef contains a relatively large amount of protein, which can make the broth murky when being cooked. Therefore, it is better to cook shortly the bones, then replace the water with a new ones. And then, cook for a long time. The correct beef broth should be cooked on moderate fire about 5 hours and it is necessary to collect the foam from the surface of the soup while boiling. When picking the root vegetables, do not put too many carrots. When it is too much, the broth will have a sweet taste. When the soup is ready, strain it (root vegetables and spices are thrown away) and add fresh vegetables according to your taste 🙂 You can pull the beef from bones into the soup. If you have clear and strong beef broth, then you have mastered it!
When preparing the clear beef broth, you can start with preparation of “crumbling noodles”. Put the flour into the bowl, add egg with pinch of salt and mix it properly until solid dough is prepared. If the dough is still soft, add more flour. When the solid dough is ready, grate it and let it dry for a while. In the mean time, take a pot with water and bring it to boil. When boiling, add dried noodles and cook around 3 – 5 minutes or until floating on the surface. Afterwards, remove them from water and serve with prepared summer vegetable soup.
Enjoy!
Vero & Canito
