My Brother’s Must-Have Soup with the Impossible Name
My siblings and I ventured into a traditional Polish restaurant* in Buffalo, NY and took a shot on a beef soup with an impossible sounding name. After his first slurp Jimmy wanted to get a quart of Golumpki Soup to go.
This is a full-bodied soup of cabbage, ground beef and tomatoes. It pretty much nails comfort in just these few ingredients. My freezer regularly holds Golumpki ready to become a main course light supper or a faithful lunch mate.
This soup is a deconstruction of traditional stuffed cabbage rolls, a backbone of Polish and Eastern European cuisine. I love to gild the lily and buy beef bones to make a stock in a slow cooker. (See easy directions below).
* Wiechech’s Bar & Grill, Buffalo, NY
Ingredients:
- butter – 2 TBS.
- ground beef – 1.5 LBS.
- onion – 2 cups, (1 large), crescent slices*
- garlic – 2 TBS., minced, divided
- cabbage, green – 7 cups, sliced thin [1.5 LBS.]
- tomatoes – crushed, 2 large cans with juice [56 oz. total]
- beef stock – 1 qt., or water
- soy sauce – 2 TBS.
- salt – 2 tsp.
- pepper – 1 tsp., fresh ground is best
GARNISHES: Rice is traditionally cooked in the soup. I get better results serving as a garnish
- cooked rice
- parsley
- sour cream
INSTRUCTIONS: If you add a 1/4 tsp of baking soda to the butter you will brown the beef more quickly
- In a large pot, brown beef in butter and remove with slotted spoon. Retain fat in pot.
- Next sauté onion, garlic and cabbage until softened, about 5 minutes.
- Add back the beef with tomatoes, stock, and salt. Let simmer, partially covered 45 minutes and check seasoning. Continue to cook if cabbage is not very soft. Finish with pepper.
- PLANNED-OVER: Finely chop kimchi and serve as garnish
NOTES: It is better to finely slice cabbage, than to shred it.
Slicing onions into crescents helps retain their shape through long cook times. I like to show the onions in most soups and stews. It’s easy: halve an onion through the poles, then slice along the longitude into thin “crescents.” If a large onion, halve first through the poles and then again through the equator, then slice into crescents.
MASTERY EN PLACE:
Simple Soup Stock – The Backbone of Home-Meals
Most of us shy from making stock because of all those steps, the skimming, the fussing.
Skip all that!
Ask your supermarket for some beef soup bones with a little meat on them. (Also works for pork, and chicken bones). If you buy a complete rotisserie chicken, this is an excellent way to make this stock.
To a slow cooker add chunks from 2 carrots, 2 small onions, and 2 celery ribs, along with the bones and 1 TBS. salt. You might add a couple bay leaves and some whole parsley stalks. Add water to cover all by at least 4-6 inches. Add 1 TBS. of apple cider vinegar. Cover and set it on low for 20-24 hours. Strain the stock through a colander and chill. Remove most of the fat and freeze in one quart containers.
I find beef soup bones at the farmers market at a booth that sells pastured beef. There is large chunks of beef on the bones which become chunks of very tender beef in a future stir fry or stew.
© Bill Hettig, billhettig@mac.com
