Creamy Garlic Soup (Krémová Cesnaková Polievka)
Ingredients: one large potato, 1.5L (6 cups) water, 3 cloves of garlic, quarter stick of butter, 40g (1/3 cup) of flour, handful of parsley, one yolk
Prep Time: About 2 hours
French have their onion soup, but we Slovaks have a garlic soup. Actually, we have quite a few different types of garlic soup. In my dad’s restaurant, you can order something very similar to the French variety, with the exception that the onion has been replaced by garlic. I decided to prepare this soup out of an old cookbook called “Grandmother’s Recipes” by M. Martišová. That book lists two types, one called “garlic soup” and the other called “gentle garlic soup”. The difference between the two was that the second recipe used half the potatoes of the first, but included parsley and a yolk. Well, I got creative and combined the two: I used the potato amount from the first recipe, but embellished the soup with the egg and the parsley. The results was, well, interesting. The main ingredients for this soup are basically garlic and mashed potatoes. The result tasted (not surprisingly!) as watery garlic mashed potatoes. I am not sure if I am sold on this soup just yet. You should try it for yourself and make up your own mind. But on the upside, the soup was gone right away, and my tasters (my friends and roommates) seemed to enjoy it. For other strange (but tasty!) Slovak soups, check out the recipes for iceberg lettuce soup and sauerkraut soup (kapustnica). The sauerkraut soup is typically eaten on Christmas and is probably my favorite Slovak dish.
Peel and dice a large potato. Boil in 1.5L of salted water until the potatoes get soft. Strain potatoes, saving the water.
Melt about a quarter-stick of butter and brown a slightly larger amount of flour. Turn off heat, add potatoes and little bit of milk.
Mash well to make mashed potatoes.
Take 3 cloves of garlic (cesnak) and turn them into paste. I used a food processor, followed by a mortar and a pestle. However, later, as I was making potato pancakes, I discovered a much simpler solution: a food grater.
Add the garlic paste to the water in which you boiled the potatoes and bring everything to boil. Stir in mashed potatoes, or pour into the pot with mashed potatoes if that happens to be larger pot. Let everything boil for some 30 minutes until you get a smooth texture. It also helps if you keep stirring and whisking.
Finally chop up bit of parsley and add it along with one yolk.
And there it is, Slovak garlic soup. Not garlicky enough? Serve with a Slovak toast. It also goes well with potato pancakes.
thanks for the recepie. shall try it soon.
I am making it right now, as I love garlic. The only thing I do differently is that I use some bacon bits (fried bacon cut in smal bits)and I use mor garlic, like a five clows. Yep I am a garlic monster 🙂
Five cloves!! But yeah, I also love garlic (to much dislike of some close friends of mine…). I used to live in California, and one thing I really regret is never making it to Gilroy for its annual garlic festival.
hehe Lubos, I can eat garlic like other people eat apple. Give me a piece of bread, some butter or olive oil and I chump down garlic cloves followed by bread. It may be the reason that I still don’t have any heart problems after 65 years of eating Slovak and other food that is not always healthy but taste so good 😉
You’re making this way to hard. Try boiling your potatoes in veg stock along with some onion & caraway seed, and then use your blender. Also I use roasted garlic, a much better rounded flavor.
At the end I also add roasted red peppers and diced fried bacon, S&P to taste.
Hi Janet, call me old-fashioned, but I like making things the way they were done back in the days. I like the simplicity of using just a wooden spoon, cutting board, few knives and a pot. But yeah, a blender could definitely come in handy! Especially when making something like halusky. Grating potatoes is a serious workout.
thx for the recipe. i linked you in my blog.
most times i got this soup with the toast and some cheese inside. greetz, j.u.
Thanks Utecht. I checked out your site. I know just enough German to understand the topics of your post. I’ll visit again, and maybe pick up more of your language. I’ve been studying German on and off for some 8 years, but never quite got past the beginner level. I usually study for 6 months, stop for a year, and then start over from scratct. I really ought to move to Germany for few years.
Do you know Cesnacka?
Sure, Cesnacka is – in translation – Garlic soup. Can be made in many ways, one of them as described in this recipe.