🇮🇹 Italy, 🇸🇮 Slovenia, and 🇭🇷 Croatia · Trieste, Friuli Venezia Giulia, with Slovenian and Istrian forms

JotaTrieste bean and sauerkraut soup

A thick soup of Trieste made of beans, sauerkraut (or sour turnip) and potatoes with smoked pork and a flour roux, one of the most characteristic dishes of the Mitteleuropean cooking of the Adriatic.

Origin and history

Jota is a thick peasant soup of Trieste and the Karst plateau, made from garden and larder staples in the Habsburg-era meeting of Italian, Slovenian and Austrian cooking. The name is probably Friulian in origin, and the dish, shared with Slovenia and Istria, is called 'Triestina' to mark the Trieste form. Its origins are not settled.

Make it at home

Makes: 4 to 6 servings
Total time: 3 h
Hands-on: 40 min

Ingredients

Metric US

300 g10 oz (about 1 1/2 cups) dried borlotti beans (or cannellini), soaked overnight with a pinch of baking soda
500 g1 lb sauerkraut (capuzi garbi), drained; rinse lightly if very sour
300 g10 oz potatoes, peeled, left in large pieces
300 g10 oz smoked pork ribs, smoked pancetta or a smoked ham bone, Trieste cooks also use cragno, a smoked Carniolan-style sausage
3 tbsp olive oil, plus extra to finish
2 tbsp flour, for the browned roux (disfrito)
2 cloves garlic
1 bay leaf
1/2 tsp caraway seeds, optional
salt and pepper, to taste

Method

1. Soak the beans overnight in cold water with a pinch of baking soda, then drain and rinse.
2. Cover the beans with fresh cold water in a large pot, add the smoked pork and bay leaf, bring to a boil and simmer gently for about 1 hour 15 minutes at about 95 °C (200 °F), until nearly tender.
3. Add the potatoes to the beans and cook another 25 to 30 minutes until soft; lift the potatoes out, crush them roughly with a fork and return them to the pot.
4. In a separate pot, simmer the sauerkraut with a ladle of the bean broth, the caraway and a little water for 20 to 30 minutes until mellow, then set aside.
5. Make the browned roux: heat the olive oil with the garlic, stir in the flour and cook, stirring, until it turns a deep hazelnut brown, about 3 minutes; take out the garlic.
6. Stir the sauerkraut into the roux, then pour it all into the bean pot and mix well.
7. Simmer gently for 40 minutes, stirring now and then, until the soup is thick and brown; season with salt and pepper (the meat and sauerkraut already carry salt).
8. Rest the soup off the heat for a few hours or, better, overnight, then reheat and serve with a thread of raw olive oil and a pinch of pepper.

Notes

Total time: 3 h (plus overnight soaking).
The Trieste soup stands on four things: beans, sauerkraut, potatoes and smoked pork, bound with a flour soffritto browned in oil. It is meant to be thick and brown, and to taste better the next day.
Slovenian (jota) and Istrian cooks make the same dish; some replace the sauerkraut with sour turnip (brovada-style) or add barley. This is the Trieste form.
The vegan jota bianca omits the pork and uses white beans; the site treats it as the same soup without meat.
Canned or precooked sauerkraut needs only warming; loose sauerkraut needs the longer simmer in step 4.
Whether potatoes are mashed or left in chunks differs from kitchen to kitchen; Triestine cooks often boil them whole and roughly crush them.

Adapted from Rita Mazzoli, Marina Raccar: Trieste in cucina, Cucina Vista Mare: Ricetta Jota triestina, and Discover Trieste: Jota.