Hungarian Hangover soup (Korhelyleves)
This Hungarian Hangover Soup is loaded with natural probiotics to cure your hangover and promises to bring you luck in the new year!
Happy New Year!! How did you ring in the new year? My family and I spent a quiet night in. We watched the movie The Little Prince. Have you seen it? We loved the books
and thankfully the movie did not disappoint. Both my daughter and I shed a tear at the end.
After the movie we had a lovely Spanish style tapas dinner. Complete with Spanish tortilla, a selection of cheeses, serrano ham, olives, apples, grapes, bread and aioli. Hubby popped the champagne early while the little princess and I drank sparkling apple juice.. haha.
As it approached midnight we tuned into Spanish television for the countdown. Spanish tradition is to have 12 grapes with each chime of the clock counting down to midnight. Getting all 12 grapes down by the time the clock strikes 12 is supposed to bring you good luck.
After a not so pleasant first time experience with las uvas (the grapes) last year ,think a lot of choking/gagging, I bought seedless grapes but unfortunately at midnight I still had 3 grapes left and the little one 5. My hubby had eaten all of his 12 though so at least one of us will be lucky in 2016!
To improve the odds of being lucky this year for New Year’s Day lunch I prepared a traditional Hungarian ‘lucky’ soup.
Back home in Trinidad the tradition is to have black eyed peas for good luck. Since I cannot find black eyed peas here in Spain I turned to my Hungarian husband for ideas. He told me about korhelyleves. Korhelyleves translates to drunken soup or hangover soup. After all isn’t everyone hungover on New Years Day? Besides being a great cure for hangovers hangover soup is supposed to bring you good luck. Win , Win!
I followed the recipe in my Hungarian cookbook
but made a few additions according to hubby’s recommendations. My version of korhelyleves combines Spanish chorizo, Hungarian paprika
, sauerkraut 
and sour cream and they all come together for an absolutely delicious soup. Serve it with a thick slice of homemade gluten free bread. My Hungarian man gave it a big thumbs up!
So tell me what are the traditions in your country on New Years Day? I love hearing from you.
Hungarian Hangover soup (Korhelyleves)
Ingredients
- ¾ cup sauerkraut
- 2 cups liquid from sauerkraut
- 1 cup bone broth or water
- ½ cup sour cream
- ¼ cup smoked ham diced
- ¼ cup chorizo finely chopped
- ½ small onion finely chopped
- 3 tablespoons butter or lard
- 1 teaspoon smoked Hungarian paprika
- pinch of black pepper
Instructions
- Melt the butter or lard in a medium pot.
- Add onions, paprika, smoked ham and chorizo to pot.
- Saute until onions are soft. Remove to a plate and set aside.
- Add the sauerkraut and its liquid along with water and sour cream to the pot.
- When the liquid is hot add the onion, ham, chorizo mixture to the pot.
- Warm through.
- Remove from heat.
- Serve
Love it! I’m always trying to come up with ways to sneak sauerkraut into my meals. This sounds like a delicious soup, Krystal! Thank you so much for sharing it at Savoring Saturdays!
The korhely leves is well translated to the Western side of Europe, or to the People in NOrth America. If you would like to avoid a mixture of too sour and too bitter tastes, try the following. Sauté onions sausage, ham etc. The paprika should be added only minutes before it is finished. Add the sour cream at the end also. Cooked/sautéed paprika becomes bitter very quick.The paprika’s flavour and colour remains fresh this way.
I have learned by my on mistakes in the past 55years of having a Hungarian/Canadian cuisine.
You are a clever cook and a quick Lerner..
AGI
Thank you for sharing your tips on Korhelyleves Agi. It’s much appreciated.
I am also a Hungarian cook, and I make korhelyleves all the time, and not for a hangover. A wonderful main course soup, especially if accompanied by a good rye bread. I would just agree with Agi about the paprika as well as the sour cream. Whenever you add sour cream to a hot broth (soup, stew, whatever) you should take some ladlefuls of the hot liquid and let it cool a bit and then gradually mix in the sour cream. Then pour the sour cream and soup mixture back into the soup. If you add sour cream to a hot soup, it will curdle.
Thank you for the tip Kati. Funnily enough I have not had this happen to me and I also make this soup often. It could be that the sour cream we get here in Spain is a bit different to the sour cream I’m used to in Hungary. Never made this soup when I lived there so I have no experiences to compare :)