The sour cream and dill are the perfect compliment to the tasty green beans in this summery creamy soup. Serve with a nice slice of fresh crusty bread for a wholesome lunch. I left the beans in whole in the spur of the moment, usually they are chooped to smaller pieces, easier to eat for sure! Very often the yellow wax bean variety was used, but type of green beans are now popular, they are called “pencil beans “, ceruza bab – I have the very similar recipe for the yellow bean soup too.
Ingredients:
- 220g (0.5 lb) green beans, trimmed top and tail
- 1 medium sized carrot, sliced
- 1 medium sized potato, diced
- 1 medium sized onion, finely chopped
- 1 large clove of garlic minced
- 2 tablespoons of sunflower or olive oil
- 2 teaspoons of flour
- 150ml (0.6 cups) sour cream
- 2 dried bay leaves
- 3 tablespoons of fresh dill finely chopped to serve
- 1 teaspoon of (Hungarian) paprika powder
- 1 teaspoon of salt
- freshly milled black pepper to taste
How to make
- Heat the oil and slowly fry the chopped onion on medium heat until becomes transluscent, add the minced garlic
- Sprinkle with a teaspoon of flour, stir for a few seconds until the flour starts to brown everso lightly
- Add the paprika powder, combine, then pour in a litre of water
- Drop in the rest of the ingredients, green beans, potato, carrot, bay leaves
- Cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes until all of the vegetables are tender
- Mix the sour cream with the other teaspoon of flour, then gradually add some of the hot liquid from the soup constantly stirring until it can be easily poured
- Now gradually add it to the soup while stirring. Let it simmer for a minute or two, the soup should slightly thicken
- Add the finelly chopped dill just before serving
From a google search I came across this image of green bean soup. It looked very tasty so I made it. I used sweet smoked paprika since I dont know what hungarian paprika is, and it turned out great. The whole family ate it including kids so I was amazed. Thank you for posting the recipe. Next day I made the pea soup recipe, I added my own shop bought short cut pasta instesd. It also was eaten before I could have a bowl myself. Thanks again. Tomorrow I’m going to try the green lentil soup. Great website hope you can build on it with more recipes.
Thanks for this lovely post Lucy, great to hear that the soups were liked by your family! Hungarian paprika is just a paprika powder – though very nice and vivid bright red, good quality – could be subsituted with other paprika powders though, I imagine the smoked paprika you used worked as well, I might try that myself sometime!
Hope the lentil soup turned out good too. :-)
I am Hungarian. This is the closet recipe to my Aunt Helen’s that I’ve found. Delicious. I added cider vinegar, which a lot of hungarian bean soup recipes call for. It makes it more of a sour soup. Instead of water, I used chicken broth. Loved it!
Hi Karen, oh yes, a splash of vinegar is a great and authentic way to serve this soup, it really lifts the flavours. The chicken broth must have made this even better for sure! :-)
Not sure of spellings: Harbot Bub; or puseuy(Passeuy?) They cut the sour cream flour mixture with a pint or so of whole milk. I Meant to add this to a previous comment today.
Yes there is “paszuly” [ˈpɒsuj ], a lovely traditional name of harricot beans, the little white ones, when young it’s greenbeans. They thickened soups and stews with the mixture of sour cream, flour and then milk. Must have some nice memories of these being made! :-)
My grandmother always made these recipes with flour (rantas) and then people modified them for the north American diet and left out the rantas and sour cream to cut the calories – but it tastes so much better the original way.
Rantas , is roux? I remember the word. Added to stuffed cabbage, or stew. Flour , browned in fat. and appearing like gravy when thinning with water a bit. But stirred in to blend but not break up rolls or composition of other dishes.
Memories before language developed! I remember getting Marrow toast because I was “GOOD”. At 2 1/2! One bite and I was Teleported back several thousand years. This type of memory is definitely encoded in genetic memories! Balogh-
Yes, that must be right! The marrow bone and vegetable broth was a highly regarded delicacy often as a Sunday starter, toast was served on the side, maybe rubbed with garlic, and ate the marrow spread on it with a bit of salt. The Hungarian film Szinbad has a famous scene that shows just that, included the video above.
Our people did not teach us “they’re Language”. The Erdely side all write and speak colloquial hungarian as in Szabolcz. On the other hand. I taught my children to cook. It is language without words; smell; taste, and communing at the fire/ table/ kill site! Both Rebecca; and Kalman: are extraordinary cooks; able to navigate, and make good memories. Our granddaughter at 3, demands to see/ and taste whats ” cooking”. This is a flash back 63 years for me. Apparently, she’s also going to be a “bright light”. Bless your followers.
Im making Passeuy (green bean soup)today! Hope it turns out! Haven’t had it since my Mamaw made it about 40 yrs ago!
What is the hot liquid. I don’t see it in the recipe. How much?
It’s in the directions. One liter of water. I used chicken broth.