Cesnecka Polevka
A Czech garlic soup with potato, marjoram and caraway, served over cheese croutons, ready in 45 minutes.
Photograph credit: Domácí česnečka by Dezidor · CC BY 3.0 · Wikimedia Commons
Storing and Planning Ahead
Keeps for 3 days in the fridge. Make the croutons fresh.
How to Make Cesnecka Polevka
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Bring the stock to the boil with the potatoes, half the garlic, marjoram and caraway. Simmer for 20 minutes.
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Mash a few potatoes against the pot. Add the rest of the garlic and simmer for 5 minutes.
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Fry the bread cubes in the butter for 5 minutes until golden.
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Beat the egg and stir it into the simmering soup in a thin stream. Season with the salt.
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Ladle over the croutons and top with the cheese.
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Tips for Success
- Add the garlic in two stages.
- Mash some potato to thicken.
- Serve with plenty of cheese.
Why the Method Is What It Is
Garlic, potatoes, stock, marjoram: four things, and a soup that Czechs eat for a cold, for a hangover and for a cheap supper. Česnečka is the Czech garlic soup, a pale, thick broth that is both strong and soothing, and it is served over cubes of bread fried until crisp and topped with cheese.
Peel a whole head of garlic, crush the cloves and add them to boiling stock, with diced potato, marjoram and caraway. Simmer for 20 minutes, until the potato is soft. Add the garlic late, or divide it in two, adding half at the start and half 5 minutes before the end, so that the soup has both mellow and sharp notes of garlic. Mash a few potatoes to thicken the broth.
Fry cubes of stale bread in butter until golden. Beat an egg and stir it into the simmering soup so that it forms ribbons. Ladle the soup over the croutons in bowls and top with grated cheese, such as Edam, which melts in the heat. Season with salt, pepper and a pinch of paprika. It is a strong soup, so serve small portions.
Serving Ideas
Rye bread · Czech lager · Pickled peppers
Swaps and Variations
- An eighth of a teaspoon of garlic powder per clove is the stand-in usually given when you are out of fresh garlic; it will not brown the same way, and it burns easily, so add it with the liquid.
Nutrition per Serving
Per serving, an approximate calculation from the ingredient list. Treat it as a rough guide: where a line offers a choice of foods, only one of them is counted; part of the energy comes from foods, or weights per item, with no recorded source. How the figures are worked out.
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Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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