🇨🇭 Switzerland · Basel
Basler MehlsuppeBasel flour soup
A Basel soup of flour browned until hazelnut-coloured, then cooked with butter, onion and beef or vegetable stock for about an hour, often topped with grated Gruyère.
Origin and history
Basler Mehlsuppe is the soup of Basel's Fasnacht. Swiss radio says most Baslers can hardly imagine a Fasnacht without it, and after marching through the old town until dawn the carnival groups fortify themselves with Mehlsuppe and onion and cheese tarts. Visitors are advised to bring a little money for tarts and Mehlsuppe as warm snacks between events. One widely told origin story has a cook scorching the flour and keeping it in the pot, but it is only a story.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 4 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 20 min
- Hands-on
- 20 min
Ingredients
- 5 tbsp (about 45 g)5 tbsp plain flour
- 50 g3 1/2 tbsp butter
- 1 onion, cut into fine strips
- 1 liter1 quart beef broth (Fleischbouillon), or vegetable broth
- 100 g1 cup Gruyère, grated, to serve (optional)
- salt and pepper, to taste
Method
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1. Toast the flour in a dry pan over medium heat, stirring often, until it turns hazelnut brown and smells nutty. Tip it onto a plate and let it cool.
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2. Lower the heat, melt the butter in the same pan or in the soup pot and sweat the onion strips for about 3 minutes.
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3. Stir the cooled flour in with the onion.
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4. Pour in the broth, whisking, and bring to a boil.
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5. Turn the heat down and simmer for 1 hour, stirring from time to time.
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6. Season with salt and pepper and serve with grated Gruyère on top if you like.
Notes
- The flour goes in dry and is browned on its own before it meets the butter, as in the SRF and Blick recipes; watch it closely, because burnt flour turns the whole soup bitter.
- Cooling the flour first and whisking as the broth goes in helps avoid lumps. Strain the soup if it is not smooth.
- The Helvetic Kitchen blog browns the flour in the butter as a roux (about 15 minutes), cook garlic and onion briefly, add a splash of red wine, then the stock; this version can also be left on very low heat for a couple of hours.
- At Fasnacht it is eaten with onion and cheese tart (Zwiebel- und Käsewähe); the blog above suggests Fastenwähe, the Lenten pastry. It also works on its own as a starter.
- Make ahead: the soup keeps for two days and reheats well; add the cheese at the table.
Adapted from SRF Radio SRF 1 Kochen, Basler Mehlsuppe, Blick, Rezept für Basler Mehlsuppe, and Helvetic Kitchen, Basler Mehlsuppe.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.