Rich, creamy, hearty and delicious, and prepared with only a handful of ingredients. An easy and fast one-pot comfort soup full of fresh vegetables, textures and flavours, perfect for a quick mid-week lunch or dinner.
Bohnscharlsuppe - Green Bean Soup - is a traditional Austrian dish. It is made with fresh green beans, potatoes, and sour cream, seasoned with cumin, pepper and parsley. The sour cream adds a creamy texture and just the right amount of acidity, the cumin warmth and earthiness, and the parsley adds freshness.
The soup is very easy and fast to prepare. The vegetables are chopped, simmered in water with spices until tender, then the soup is thickened with sour cream and flour and finished with fresh, chopped parsley.
Bohnscharln is Styrian dialect for Bohnschoten, meaning green beans or runner beans. There are many other names for these beans in Austria: Bohnschoten or Bohnscheitel, referring to the long shape of the pod, as well as Fisolen, or Strankalan, how the Kärntner (our Carinthian neighbours) call them.
A bit of Background...
In Austria, it is traditonal to eat hot sweet dishes for lunch, such as Marillenknödel (apricot dumplings), Zwetschgenknödel (plum dumplings), Kaiserschmarren (literally translated as emperor's nonsense or emperor's mess, a thick sweet pancake with raisins, torn into bite-sized pieces), Grießschmarren (more semolina 'nonsense' baked in the oven), Palatschinken (thin, large pancakes), Topfenknödel (quark dumplings), Marillenknödel, Zwetschgenknödel (apricot and plum dumplings), just to name a few. These are typically preceded or followed by a soup. With many sweet-tooths in my family, this has always been a popular lunch combination at my parents' home.
Bohnscharlsuppe is one of the soups my mum and grandma would make, as well as Rindsuppe (beef soup), Kraftsuppe (a 'power' soup with semolina and egg), and many others. It is excellent as an accompaniement to sweet dishes, but also works well as a small lunch or dinner. Traditionally, Bohnscharlsuppe would be thickened with a Roux made from flour and butter, but I prefer this less fatty and simpler version, where the flour is just mixed with the sour cream and incorporated at the end. Also, the sour cream already provides enough flavour and richness to the soup, so the butter isn't really needed.
Green beans are usually harvested from late summer to early autumn, which is when they are at their peak freshness. I really recommend using fresh beans for this soup.
You could use frozen beans, but they often become very soft after defrosting, which means you lose that beautiful texture and crunch in the soup, especially if you need to defrost them first to chop them into smaller pieces. However, if you find them already cut and frozen, you could add them directly from the freezer into the pot without defrosting, but I have never tried it. In case the frozen beans end up to soft after all, you could always puree the entire soup once it's finished.
How to Make:
AUSTRIAN BOHNSCHARLSUPPE, GREEN BEAN SOUP
Recipe source: My mum's (typical Styrian recipe)
INGREDIENTS:
Makes app. 6-8 Portions
(Quite a big quantity, but the soup warms up very well, so I tend to make a large pot to keep some for the next day.)
750 g fresh green beans (string/runner beans)
approximately 500 g potatoes
2 litres water
1 to 1½ teaspoons cumin
sea salt
½ teaspoon freshly milled black pepper
5 tablespoons = 75ml sour cream
4 tablespoons flour
bunch of parsley, roughly chopped
DIRECTIONS:
Prepare all the ingredients:
Clean and cut the vegetables: Wash and de-string 750 g beans: snap or cut off the top, then pull down on the side to remove the tough string. Repeat on the other side. Cut the beans into approximately 1 cm pieces and put them into a large pot.
Peel 500 g potatoes, placing them into a bowl of cold water as you go along to prevent them from discolouring, then cut them into approximately 1 cm cubes and add them to the pot.
Simmer the vegetables: Add 2 litres of cold water to the vegetables (the beans and potatoes should be well covered), then season with 1 to 1½ teaspoons cumin, sea salt (taste the water, it should be pleasantly salted), and ½ teaspoon freshly milled black pepper. Bring to a boil, removing any scum rising to the top with a large spoon. Then reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the beans are al dente and the potatoes are soft, but don't fall apart, app. 10-15 minutes.
Thicken the soup: When the beans and potatoes are cooked, put 5 Tablespoons (75ml) sour cream into a small bowl. Add 4 Tablespoons flour and whisk into a smooth paste, beating out any lumps. Add a little cold water and stir well, so that the mixture has a runnier consistency.
Pour the sour cream mixture into the soup whisking vigorously as you pour in, to avoid any lumps from forming. Bring the soup back to a soft boil, stirring or whisking constantly to remove any lumps that may form. Simmer the soup for a couple of minutes until nicely thickened and the raw flour taste has been cooked out. Avoid boiling the soup once the sour cream has been added, as it might cause the cream to separate.
Check for seasoning/add parsley: check for seasoning and add more sea salt, cumin or freshly milled black pepper if necessary, then add the chopped parsley.
Serve in warmed soup bowls.
STORAGE & RE-HEATING:
Store: Cool any left-over soup quickly in a water bath: fill the sink half with cold water (to cool it faster you can also add ice cubes), then place the pot inside the sink. Stir the soup from time to time until it is cold, then cover it and store it in the fridge. The soup will keep for a couple of days.Re-heat: Re-heat the soup in the pot over medium-high heat, making sure not to boil it to avoid that the sour cream splits. Enjoy! Eva oxoxo
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