Sauerkraut Soup

We’ve had requesters looking for what to do with the leftover sauerkraut, so this one’s for you! Rich with butter, cream, bacon & white wine, this soup makes the sow’s ear of sauerkraut into a silk purse. Iron Chef Edward Lee created it for his Louisville, KY, restaurant 610 Magnolia, putting to use the sauerkraut his German in-laws make each year from cabbage they grow themselves. We didn’t have Harold and Virlee’s home-pickled sauerkraut to put in our test batches but, I’m happy to say, the store-bought German sauerkraut we sourced from our local ethnic market worked just fine.This soup won’t curdle, despite the inclusion of cream. And, it keeps well. Lee likes to serve his with sausage, biscuits and an arugula garnish. We swapped out the biscuits for good rye bread added some German veal sausages and mustard, too.Here’s a Q&A we did with Edward about the Korean-German pickled cabbage connection, and, his special soup.

LRF: You’ve told me that through your Korean heritage you grew up eating a lot of pickled and fermented veggies. How well does German sauerkraut compare?

Lee: Koreans are all about fermented and pickled vegetables so for me, sauerkraut is just German kim chi. The pickling methods are very similar, except that Koreans use spices, salted shrimp and ginger. Both Korean and German pickled cabbages are still made in garages and backyards of traditional families all around the world. My in-laws, for example, make their sauerkraut in their garage using an old family recipe that has been with them for generations. They shave the cabbage with a large, wooden mandoline into simple, ceramic crocks where it’s fermented with salt.

LRF: How did you first learn that your in-laws were making sauerkraut?

Lee: Harold and Virlee are from Germany, but now reside in Ferdinand, Indiana. Every year, my wife Dianne would go home to visit her parents and come back with mason jars full of sauerkraut. She’d put them in the pantry and usually, forgot about them. One day, I opened her pantry and found about a dozen jars of sauerkraut! I opened one and it was the best tasting sauerkraut I’d ever had–far better than the sauerkraut I remember getting from hot dog carts when I was growing up in Brooklyn. It’s funny–I can taste herbs and juniper and a hint of clove in my in-law’s sauerkraut. But when I asked what spices they used, they just looked at me and said, “just cabbage and salt.” That really blew me away!

LRF: When did you first come up with the idea of making sauerkraut into a soup?

Lee: I hate to waste things, and wanted to come up with something that would use all of the sauerkraut we’d stockpiled, but also wanted to ensure it remained in the spotlight. The idea of an elegant, creamy decadent soup with a pickled finish to it sounded perfect. It’s been a hit at the restaurant ever since.