🇭🇺 Hungary
MeggylevesCold Hungarian sour cherry soup
Hungarian cold summer soup of sour cherries simmered with sugar and spices (cinnamon, cloves), enriched with sour cream or cream and flour, and chilled.
Origin and history
Meggyleves is the best known of Hungary's gyümölcsleves, sweet-sour fruit soups served cold in summer when sour cherries ripen. Telex notes that fruit soups appear in Hungarian recipe collections as far back as the 17th century, and that the cherry version is the cuisine's prototype of them. Similar cherry soups exist in Austria, Poland, Slovakia and Germany, and every Hungarian family has its own recipe.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 15 min
- Hands-on
- 30 min
Ingredients
- 800 g1 3/4 lb sour cherries (meggy), washed and pitted; canned or frozen if out of season
- 1.5 l6 1/3 cups water
- 100 g1/2 cup sugar, more to taste
- 1 cinnamon stick
- 5 whole cloves
- 1 strip of lemon zest
- 1 pinch salt
- 250 g1 cup sour cream or light cream
- 1 tbsp plain flour
- 1 tbsp lemon juice, optional, to taste
Method
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1. Put the cherries, water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon zest and salt in a pot. Bring to a boil.
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2. Simmer over medium-low heat for 10 to 15 minutes, until the cherries are soft and the liquid is deep pink.
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3. Fish out the cinnamon, cloves and zest.
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4. In a bowl whisk the cream and flour smooth, then whisk in 1/2 cup of hot cherry liquid, a little at a time.
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5. Pour the cream mixture back into the pot slowly, stirring, and bring to a gentle boil for 2 minutes so the flour cooks and the soup thickens slightly.
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6. Taste and balance with lemon juice or sugar, aiming for sweet-sour.
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7. Cool, then chill for at least 4 hours. Serve very cold, in chilled bowls.
Notes
- Meggyleves is a sweet-sour cold soup eaten in the summer cherry season, as a starter or a light lunch. Taste Hungary argues for fresh sour cherries, whose vibrancy is the point, while noting that some households use frozen or canned ones; if you use canned cherries in syrup, cut back the sugar.
- Cream versus sour cream is a household choice: sour cream is tangier. Taste Hungary lists star anise, a little red wine or a scoop of vanilla ice cream as household extras. A Telex cook skips the flour and cream thickener, adds a handful of ground almonds to the pot and stirs cold sour cream in at the table to keep the broth smooth.
- Whisking the cream with the flour and tempering it with hot liquid, as the Taste Hungary and Offbeat Budapest recipes do, prevents lumps.
- Meggyleves is the best known of the Hungarian gyümölcsleves (fruit soups); other fruit soups exist but have no page of their own here.
- Chill it at least 4 hours; it keeps about 2 days in the refrigerator.
Adapted from Taste Hungary, Cherry soup (meggyleves), Offbeat Budapest, Chilled sour cherry soup (hideg meggyleves), We Love Budapest, Traditional Hungarian fruit soup, and Telex, Hűvös levesek hőguta ellen.
At the festivals
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