Kartoffelsuppe

The German everyday potato soup of potatoes, leek, carrot, and celeriac, seasoned with marjoram and finished with slices of sausage

Origin: Erfurt, Berlin & the German Lands

From the journey of Potato.

Potato soup is the plain end of German cooking and one of the dishes Germans cook most often. It is built on Suppengrün, the bundle of leek, carrot, celeriac, and parsley sold together in every market, simmered with potatoes until some of them collapse and thicken the pot, and it is seasoned, almost always, with marjoram. That is the herb the Germans reach for with anything potato, pea, or lentil, and it is what makes this a German soup rather than simply a potato one. It is finished according to region and household: with slices of Wiener or Bockwurst sausage warmed through at the end, with crisp bacon, with a spoonful of cream, or plain. Half the potatoes are usually crushed and half left in pieces, so that the soup is thick without being smooth. The potato came to the German lands late and against resistance. Frederick the Great of Prussia issued orders in the 1750s promoting its cultivation, and the story that he had it planted in royal fields under a guard lax enough to invite theft, so that peasants would decide it must be valuable, is too good to be sure of, and much the same story is told of Antoine Parmentier in France. What is certain is that within a century it had become the everyday food of the German countryside.

Ingredients

Soup

  • 800 g floury potatoes, peeled and diced
  • 1 leek, sliced
  • 1 carrot, diced
  • 150 g celeriac, diced
  • 1 onion, chopped
  • 30 g butter
  • 1.2 l vegetable or chicken stock
  • 2 tsp dried marjoram
  • 1 bay leaf
  • 1 tsp salt

To Finish

  • 4 Wiener or Bockwurst sausages, sliced (optional)
  • 2 tbsp chopped parsley

Method

  1. Soften the onion and leek in the butter for 5 minutes, then add the carrot and celeriac and cook for 3 minutes more.
  2. Add the potatoes, stock, marjoram, bay leaf, and salt, bring to the boil, and simmer for 25 minutes, until the potatoes are completely soft.
  3. Remove the bay leaf and crush about half the potatoes against the side of the pan to thicken the soup.
  4. Add the sliced sausage and warm through for 5 minutes. Stir in a little more marjoram, rubbed between the palms.
  5. Serve scattered with parsley, with rye bread.

Notes

Frozen Suppengrün mixes are sold in German supermarkets and work well. For a vegetarian soup leave out the sausage and finish with a spoonful of soured cream.

The Gastrographer

The Gastrographer

Mapping Culinary History

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Journey Point Map Key

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