Polish white bean soup on smoked pork: thick, with potatoes and marjoram
A winter soup that is a dinner in itself: white beans soaked overnight, cooked with pork ribs and smoked bacon, with root vegetables, potatoes, sausage and marjoram crushed in at the end. It thickens by itself from the bean starch. All it asks is that you remember to soak the beans the night before.
Your own work in that: 35 min.
- Beans soaking 720 min
- Beans and stock 60 min
- Vegetables and sausage 25 min
- Marjoram and seasoning 10 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneThe evening before: soak the beans
Pick over and rinse the beans, cover with plenty of cold water, at least three times their volume. Leave 12 hours. In the morning drain and rinse.
Ingredients: 300 g dried white beans · 500 g pork ribs · 150 g smoked bacon · 2500 ml water · 2 pcs bay leaves · 5 pcs allspice berries · 1 pcs onion
TipSoaked beans cook much faster and more evenly. If you forget to soak them, cover with boiling water, boil 2 minutes and leave covered for an hour: nearly as good.
Plenty of cold water, 12 hoursCook the beans with the smoked pork
Cover the beans, ribs, the piece of bacon, the whole onion, bay leaves and allspice with fresh water. Bring to the boil, skim, lower the heat and simmer covered 60 minutes, until the beans are almost tender but whole (they finish cooking with the vegetables; large beans may need another quarter of an hour). Don't salt at this stage.
TipAcid (tomatoes, for instance) noticeably slows the softening of beans, and the smoked pork salts the stock anyway — so season only once the beans are soft.
An hour without salt, until tenderCut the vegetables
Dice the carrot, parsley root and celeriac into 1 cm, the potatoes into 2 cm, chop the garlic. Cut the sausage into half-moons. Lift the ribs and bacon from the pot, take the meat off the bones and dice it. Remove and discard the onion and bay leaves.
Ingredients: 2 pcs carrots · 1 pcs parsley root · 1 pcs celeriac, a piece · 400 g potatoes · 200 g smoked sausage · 2 cloves garlic · 1 tbsp dried marjoram · 1½ tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper · ½ bunch flat-leaf parsley
Centimetre dice, potatoes largerAdd the vegetables and sausage
Add the vegetables, potatoes, garlic, diced meat and sausage to the bean pot. Salt. Cook 20 minutes, until the potatoes are tender. If the soup is too thin, crush a few beans against the side of the pot with a spoon: it thickens at once.
Vegetables, meat, sausage, 20 minutesMarjoram at the end
Crush the marjoram between your palms over the pot, add the pepper, taste and add salt. Simmer another 3 minutes. Marjoram cooked for long loses its aroma; added at the end it perfumes the soup.
Crushed in the palms, three minutesServe
With parsley and buttered bread. On the second day it is thicker and better; loosen with a little water when reheating. It can be frozen, though the potatoes turn slightly spongy once thawed.
Parsley, bread, butter
Before you start
Meat-free
Vegetable stock with 4 dried mushrooms, a tablespoon of butter and a teaspoon of smoked paprika at the end. The meatless, Lenten version.
With tomato
2 tablespoons of tomato paste in with the vegetables: red, sharper, in the style of Polish baked beans.
The beans won't soften
Old beans (over a year) or hard water. Add a pinch of bicarbonate of soda to the pot and allow 30 minutes more. Buy beans from the latest harvest, with a long best-before date.
