Potato Soup with Pork Cracklings

Potato purée

1. The puréed potato soup is made in parallel: the potatoes are boiled while the pork cracklings are prepared. Then everything is combined just before serving.

2. Prepare the potatoes. For the soup, choose medium-sized potatoes that cook down well, so that you don’t end up with the potato dough we make when we cook potato zrazy. Wash and peel the potatoes.

   

   Remove the “eyes” (the growth points of the potato), any remaining skin and dark spots very thoroughly. I strongly advise cutting each potato into several pieces and inspecting it. Quite often there are cavities, pests or dark patches inside the tuber.

   

3. Boil the potatoes with the carrot. Cover the peeled potatoes with 1.5–2 l of water and salt it. Add a whole peeled carrot to the water, a small one but preferably brightly colored. Put the pot on the heat and bring the liquid to a boil. Cook over medium heat until completely done, about 15 mins after it comes to a boil. It is even better if the potatoes are slightly overcooked, just a tiny bit. You will need the liquid the potatoes cooked in, so pour it off into another pot. Separately, hard-boil an egg; you need its yolk for the color of the soup.

   

4. Mash the potatoes with the carrot and yolk. Set the carrot aside for now and mash the boiled potatoes by any means at hand. Surely everyone knows how to make mashed potatoes. Then purée the mash further with a handheld kitchen blender, which gives a perfectly smooth purée with no lumps. Blend the boiled carrot at the same time. To improve the color, add the yolk of the hard-boiled egg to the potatoes at the blending stage, and you will get a soup of a pleasant yellow shade.

   

5. Thin the purée to a soup consistency. Transfer the potato purée to a pot, salt it to taste if needed, and thin it with the liquid left from boiling to the consistency you want. How thick it is is up to you. But understand that we are making potato soup, not a side dish of boiled potatoes. The purée should at least be pourable and run off a spoon.

   

Cracklings

1. Fry the pork cracklings while you prepare the vegetables. As I said, for potato soup it is better to use lean pork belly with plenty of meat. Completely lean meat is not the best option, because it is hard to fry without adding fat. Ordinary pork fat isn’t very suitable either, since too much fat renders out, and it is better kept for a snack of salo with garlic. Cut the pork belly into cubes or strips. Be sure to remove the cartilage, bones and any remaining skin. Put the pieces of belly in a well-heated dry frying pan and fry over medium heat, stirring from time to time, until the cracklings are well browned, a nice golden color, and crisp.

   

Serving

1. Assemble the soup. When all the ingredients are ready, you can start serving. Bring the potato purée, thinned to a semi-liquid state, to a boil and immediately remove it from the heat. Put the fried pork cracklings into bowls and pour the potato purée over them.

   

2. Sprinkle the soup with herbs and pepper. Pick all the leaves off the dill sprigs and chop them finely. Sprinkle the soup with the dill and coarsely ground hot red pepper, to taste. If you like, you can also add homemade croutons, which are easy to make yourself. Potato soup is served hot, but not scalding, or you may burn your tongue and fail to enjoy the taste of the dish. I recommend serving it with toasted bread and, if you like, a clove of garlic.

   

   A few words about variations of potato soup. People often object that not everyone eats pork. True, not everyone does. For example, Jewish cuisine doesn’t use pork cracklings and replaces them with goose cracklings, which is very tasty. Just use your imagination and you can make potato soup the way that suits you. And by and large, you can do without meat altogether and replace it with vegetables fried in vegetable oil: carrot, parsnip, onion and celery stalks.