№ 25Pautu zupa

Beer soup with egg yolks and cream Serves 4–6 · 25 minutes · Adapted from the 1796 recipe; not yet tested.

The book gives 1½ stopi of light beer and 6 egg yolks, which converts to about 1.9 l and 6. We've scaled this down by a third.

Ingredients

• 1.25 l light, low-alcohol beer (not a bitter or hoppy one)
• 1 tsp dried bitter orange peel, finely chopped, or the zest of ½ orange cut into fine strips
• 60–80 g sugar or golden syrup, to taste
• 4 egg yolks
• 150 ml single cream
• 4–6 slices white bread, cut into pieces
• To serve: 1 tbsp sugar mixed with ½ tsp ground cinnamon

Method

1. Bring the beer to the boil and skim off the foam. Stir in the orange peel and the sugar or syrup, then turn the heat down low. 2. Whisk the egg yolks and cream in a bowl. Whisk in two ladles of the hot beer, one at a time. 3. Pour this into the pan and stir constantly over low heat until the soup thickens slightly and coats the back of a spoon (about 80 °C). Don't let it boil, or the yolks will curdle. 4. Put the bread in bowls, pour the soup over and sprinkle with the cinnamon sugar.

Notes

• What the book says vs. what we added: the book boils and skims the beer, adds bitter orange peel and sugar or syrup, then thickens it with 6 yolks and cream, stirring all the time so it doesn't curdle, and pours it over white bread with cinnamon sugar on top. Warming the yolks first, the temperature and the amount of cream are ours.
• Cream: the book says only krējums. Elsewhere it says "sweet" (01-012) or "sour" (01-010) when it matters, so the meaning is open. We use fresh cream; soured cream is possible but more likely to split in the hot beer.
• Ratio: 4 yolks per stops of liquid, as here after scaling, is the same as in the chocolate milk soup (01-057).
• Name: despite the title ("egg soup"), the base is beer. It is close to the beer soup before it (01-024), but enriched with yolks and cream instead of milk and flour. See 01-024 for which beer to use.