Soups of Substance

- a few Icelandic soups

If you ask an Icelander to name the traditional Icelandic soups – excluding the sweet ones – chances are most people will come up with the same 3 soups: meat soup, pea soup with salted lamb, and halibut soup. All are substantial soups, always served as a main course, never as a starter. The two meat soups share the same vegetables: potatoes, rutabagas (swedes), and carrots. The halibut soup is a bit more exotic – even faintly medieval, with its sweet-sour taste and dried fruit. Yet these soups are all simple, hearty and wholesome, and can be very good indeed, if well made, although it must be admitted that they can also be perfectly dreary. All are still popular, even if they are not served as often as they used to be.

To this, a fourth, more modern soup can be added - the langoustine soup (or lobster soup, as it will probably be called if you encounter it on a restaurant menu). There are many variations on this very popular soup but most are flavored with tomatoes and curry powder and enrichened with cream.

Icelandic Lamb Soup
Kjötsúpa
Serves 4 as a main course

The Icelandic name of this very traditional soup means simply “meat soup” and for most Icelanders, this is THE Icelandic soup, even though similar soups can be found in other countries. Formerly this soup was often served on Christmas Eve but later it became more of an everyday soup.

Rutabagas, potatoes, and carrots are the traditional vegetables but every housewife used to have her very own recipe for it. Most include a small amount of rice or oatmeal as a thickener – sometimes just a tablespoon or two – but my mother’s version did not and I like the soup much better this way. On the other hand, I usually add a tablespoon of “soup herbs” (actually mostly dried finely chopped vegetables and a few herbs), which can be bought in small packets in Iceland. A few tablespoons of chopped lovage leaves would be a good substitute, or even chopped celery leaves. But the soup can be made without this addition, and it is still very popular.

2 pounds lamb on the bone, cut in big chunks
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 pound rutabagas (swedes)
½ pound potatoes
½ pound carrots
1 small onion
1 cup shredded cabbage (optional)

Trim some of the excess fat off the meat. Place it in a large pan, add 6 cups cold water and heat slowly to a boil. Skim the broth, then add salt and pepper and simmer, partly covered, for about 45 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel the rutabagas and cut them into chunks. Peel the potatoes and halve or quarter them unless they are small. Peel or scrape the carrots and cut them into pieces. Peel the onion and slice it thinly. Add the vegetables (except the cabbage, if using) to the soup and simmer for 15 minutes more.

Add cabbage and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes, or until all the vegetables are tender. Taste, add salt and pepper if needed, and serve.

The soup is always eaten with the meat but it is often taken out and served on a separate plate. Soup plates are placed on the right side of the dinner plates. Some people prefer to cut up their meat on the dinner plate, transfer it to the soup plate and pour soup and vegetables over it. Others prefer taking a forkful of meat and a spoonful of soup alternately.
 

Split Pea and Salted Lamb Soup
Saltkjöt og baunir
Serves 4 to 6 as a main meal

This is a very traditional Icelandic dish. It is quite similar to Scandinavian pea soups, except it is always made with salted lamb, not pork. Salted lamb may be very hard to find outside Iceland. Salted pork can be substituted but the dish will taste quite different. For many people, this is now a once-a-year treat, always served on Shrove Tuesday, called Sprengidagur (Bursting day) in Iceland.

The following is my mother’s recipe. The reason for cooking most of the meat separately is simply that if it is properly salted, it may make the soup too salty. If it is very mildly salted, all the meat can be cooked in the soup. Many people now add a piece or a few slices of bacon at the beginning of cooking, and vegetables like leeks and cabbage are sometimes added.

Most people soak the peas for up to 24 hours but this is totally unnecessary and the soup will definitely not gain anything from it. It will, on the other hand, benefit from being made the day before and reheated.

1 cup yellow split peas
1 cup chopped onion
2 teaspoons dried thyme
3 pounds salted lamb on the bone
1 pound rutabagas (swedes)
1 pound potatoes
½ pound carrots
Freshly ground pepper
Salt (optional)

Place the peas in a large pan and add 8 cups cold water. Heat to a boil, skim, and add onion and thyme. Simmer, partly covered, for 1 hour, stirring occasionally.

Add one chunk of meat to the soup but place the rest in a separate pan, cover with water and cook until tender. Let the soup simmer for 30 minutes.

Meanwhile, peel the vegetables and cut them into 1½- to 2-inch cubes. Add them to the soup and simmer for 25 minutes more, or until tender. Stir the soup occasionally and add water if it is becoming rather thick.

When the meat and vegetables are tender, taste the soup and add some pepper and more salt if needed. Remove the meat from the soup and serve on a separate platter.

This soup is eaten with the meat as a main course but the meat is not served in the soup. The table is laid with dinner plates and soup plates side by side and each person will be served a piece of meat on his dinner plate. Many cut it up and add it to the soup but others prefer to eat a piece of meat and a spoon of soup alternately.

Halibut Soup
Lúðusúpa
Serves 4 as a main course

This rather special sweet-sour fish soup, much loved by many Icelanders (and hated by others), is an old one; there are several versions in the earliest Icelandic cookbook, published in 1800, one of them being a “fine fish soup for gentlefolk.” That one has currants instead of prunes and raisins, and is thickened with sour cream and decorated with parsley.

There are many variations of this soup. Egg yolks or cream may be used for thickening, and sometimes pearl sago is added. The prunes may be substituted with 1-inch lengths of rhubarb stalks, precooked until softened. Other types of fish may be used, especially salmon and trout, but the halibut version is by far the most common.

2 pounds halibut
1 tablespoon white vinegar
2 bay leaves
Salt
12 pitted prunes
2 to 3 tablespoons raisins
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon flour
Juice of ½ lemon
1 tablespoon sugar, or to taste

Clean the halibut and cut it into 1-inch-thick steaks. Combine vinegar, bay leaves, a teaspoon or so of salt and 5 cups water in a large pan and heat to a boil. Add the halibut steaks and simmer slowly until the fish is cooked and can just be separated from the bones.

Skim the broth and strain most of it into another pan. Add prunes and raisins and heat to a boil, but leave a cupful of broth in the pan with the fish to keep it warm. Mix butter and flour and stir into the broth. Let the soup simmer for 5 to 6 minutes.

Stir in the remaining broth, add lemon juice and sugar to taste and serve with the fish.

The fish, rarely served in the soup, is usually put on a separate plate, and is frequently paired with boiled potatoes which may be sprinkled with some chopped parsley.
 

Curried Langoustine Soup
Karríkrydduð humarsúpa
Serves 6 as a starter

There are many versions of the following soup, seasoned with curry powder. Fairly similar curried soups, made with white fish instead of shellfish, can be found in old cookbooks, and many modern fish and shellfish soups are curry-flavored. Prawns may be substituted for the langoustines.

½ pound langoustines, in the shell
1 tablespoon oil
1 onion, finely chopped
1 carrot, chopped
1 tablespoon tomato paste
Freshly ground pepper
Salt
2 tablespoons butter
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 teaspoons mild curry powder (or to taste)
½ cup dry white wine
1 cup cream, or half-and-half

Shell the langoustines and set them aside. Crush the shells and put them in a pan with oil, half the onion, and the carrot. Cook slowly until the onion is softened. Stir in tomato paste and 6 cups water, add pepper and salt and bring to a boil. Simmer, uncovered, for 30 minutes, then strain through a fine sieve and set aside.

Wash out the pan and melt the butter in it. Add the rest of the onion and cook at moderate heat until softened. Add garlic and curry powder and cook for 1 minute. Stir in the wine and cook briskly until reduced by half, then stir in the langoustine stock, bring to a boil, and simmer for 10 minutes.

Cut the langoustines into thick slices and add them to the soup. Stir in cream, bring to a boil, and simmer for 2 minutes more. Season to taste with pepper and salt and serve at once.

A dash of brandy is sometimes added to the soup.
 

Nanna Rögnvaldardóttir