Soup in the winter months is like a receiving warm embrace from the inside. In the kitchen the lingering heat and aromas from the preparation give soup a whole other set of sensory delights.
Homemade soups played center stage in a Library tradition that took place every February as a part of the month long OSU Food Drive. This event brought together a tasty variety of meat and vegetarian soups, stews, and chilis to serve as a fundraiser lunch for the Linn Benton Food Share.
While this year we can’t share the soups in the usual way, I wanted to keep the tradition alive virtually by making one and posting about it here. To honor the motivation behind our annual soup extravaganza, I ask the reader to please consider a donation to the OSU Food Drive. Thanks!
So, without further ado, let’s get to the soup!
Icelandic Meat Soup
- 1 pint water
- 1 lb lamb meat
- 1 to 1.5 teaspoons salt
- 2 tablespoons rice
- 8 oz beets
- 2-3 carrots
- 2-3 potatoes
- 4 oz cabbage
1. Boil the water in a saucepan.
2. Wash and clean meat and cut into cubes. Put the meat into the boiling water.
3. Remove the scum off the top of the soup and add salt.
4. Wash the rice and add to the soup.
5. Clean and wash vegetables. Cut up and add to the soup. Cook for 20 minutes.
*Featured in Food Fair: An International Cookbook. 1987 International Student Organization & International Cultural Service Program, Oregon State University. Recipe contributed by Margret Reynisdottir. Publication available online here.
This seemed like an ideal winter soup: hearty, full of root veggies, and from a country known to get a little chilly. Preparing this brought me a few culinary firsts: cooking with meat from a chop (lamb), boiling bones to make a broth, and using beets in a recipe. I was concerned about blandness since salt was the only spice added, so I took the extra step of making a little stock from the chop bone for a little “flavor insurance.”
The results offered up a visual feast of vibrant colors-orange, yellowish white, purple, and grey. All of this was bathed in a reddish broth tinted by the beets-quite a sight! The root mixture gave the soup an overall sweetness that was a little surprising, while the lamb helped to balance out with a savory and fatty flair that I did expect. One thing to note is that the rice and cabbage really added nothing to this in the way of taste or texture. Overall, the soup worked perfectly in warming me up during lunchtime on a cold winter Monday.
Perhaps next February during more “open” times, I can revisit this recipe and share it with others-stay tuned!
Karl McCreary
