Casual Kitchen: Austrian Cuisine: Viennese Potato Soup (Wiener Kartoffelsuppe)

Another new recipe as part of Cookbook Exploitation Month:

Here’s an Austrian soup recipe that is so hearty and wholesome, I bet the von Trapp family served it at dinnertime. It comes from a cookbook of Austrian cuisine that was a gift from a wonderful guest we recently hosted who hailed from Graz, Austria.

The ingredients will all be easy to find in your grocery store, and yet the soup has a distinct and unusual savory flavor. Cook this simple and highly scalable dish in your home and see if it makes your family burst into song!

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Viennese Potato Soup (Wiener Kartoffelsuppe)
(adapted slightly from "Culinary Austria" by Hubert Krenn Publishing)

1 Tablespoon butter
1 medium onion, chopped
Two slices bacon

3/4 ounce (call it 2 Tablespoons) white flour
4-5 cups of beef or vegetable stock
3 carrots or parsnips (or a combination of both), chopped
3 stalks celery, chopped
6-8 mushrooms, sliced or chopped
3-4 medium potatoes, peeled and cubed
a dash of salt
ground black pepper and plenty of ground marjoram to taste

1) Melt the butter in a large deep pan, fry bacon and chopped onions on medium heat until bacon is done. Remove the bacon and chop into pieces, then add back to pan.

2) Add the flour and liquid stock. Then add the salt, pepper, marjoram, carrots, parsnips and celery. Bring to a boil and then simmer for 10 minutes.

3) Add the potatoes and simmer for 20-25 minutes, or until the potatoes are tender. Season with additional pepper or marjoram if desired. Garnish with fresh parsley.

Serves 4+. Can be doubled easily.
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Unfortunately, I can't post an affiliate link to this cookbook because it doesn't exist at Amazon. But if you are reading me from the EU, you can buy a copy of this book via this link for only 10 Euros (um, that's about a million dollars US). Helps if you speak a little German.