Bramboračka

The Czech potato soup of root vegetables and dried forest mushrooms, thickened with a light roux and seasoned with garlic and plenty of marjoram

Origin: Prague & Bohemia

From the journey of Potato.

Bramboračka is the soup of the Czech kitchen in the way that svíčková is its Sunday dish: everyone makes it, everyone's grandmother made it better, and it is judged on two things, the mushrooms and the marjoram. The mushrooms are dried ones from the forest, gathered in late summer by a nation that treats mushroom-picking as a national pastime, soaked and cooked with the potatoes so that their dark, woody liquor becomes the body of the broth. The rest is root vegetables, carrot, parsley root, and celeriac, a light roux of butter and flour to thicken it, garlic, caraway, and marjoram, and the marjoram goes in generously and near the end. Czech cooks say, of this soup and of bramboráky alike, that marjoram is the seasoning that makes it taste Czech, and a bowl of bramboračka without it would be thought unfinished. It is sometimes served in a hollowed loaf of bread, a practice common in restaurants in Prague, which is a modern presentation and not a traditional one.

Ingredients

Soup

  • 20 g dried wild mushrooms (ceps or mixed)
  • 300 ml hot water, for soaking
  • 700 g floury potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 1 parsley root or parsnip, diced
  • 100 g celeriac, diced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 40 g butter
  • 2 tbsp plain flour
  • 1.3 l vegetable stock
  • 0.5 tsp caraway seeds

To Finish

  • 4 garlic cloves, crushed
  • 1 tbsp dried marjoram, rubbed fine
  • 1 tsp salt

Method

  1. Soak the dried mushrooms in the hot water for 30 minutes. Lift them out, chop them, and strain and keep the soaking liquid.
  2. Soften the onion in the butter, stir in the flour, and cook for 2 minutes to a pale roux.
  3. Whisk in the stock and the mushroom liquid, then add the potatoes, carrot, parsley root, celeriac, mushrooms, and caraway. Simmer for 30 minutes, until the potatoes are soft.
  4. Stir in the garlic, marjoram, and salt and simmer for 5 minutes more.
  5. Taste, adjust the salt, and serve with rye bread.

Notes

Fresh mushrooms can be added with the potatoes, but the dried ones give the soup its character. A spoonful of soured cream in each bowl is a common modern addition.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

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Ingredient originTrade or transit route
Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control
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