Hungarian · soup

Jókai Bableves (Jókai Bean Soup with Smoked Knuckle and Csipetke)

Jókai Bableves (Jókai Bean Soup with Smoked Knuckle and Csipetke) reads richness 6.3, umami 5.3 and sourness 4.6 on Palate's 0–10 flavor X-ray — a Hungarian soup, about 2 hr 17 min. Measured from the recipe itself: ingredients and technique.

The flavor X-ray — six axes, 0–10

• Umami & Savory — 5.9 / 10
• Sweet & Fruity — 3.4 / 10
• Sour & Bright — 4.7 / 10
• Bitter & Earthy — 1.8 / 10
• Rich & Fat — 6.4 / 10
• Aromatic & Spice — 3.2 / 10

The measured notes (of 18)

Richness 6.3 · Umami 5.3 · Sourness 4.6 · Salinity 3.7 · Sweetness 3.1 · Allium 3.0 · Funk & Ferment 2.6 · Earthy 1.6 · Herbaceous 1.1 · Bitterness 1.0 · Fruity 1.0 · Floral 0.5

What's in it (16)

• dried cranberry beans — 300 g
• pork hocks — 100 g
• water — 2500 g
• carrots — 120 g
• parsley root — 100 g
• onion — 110 g
• lard — 41 g
• sweet paprika — 30 g
• all-purpose flour — 15 g
• debreceni — 150 g
• sour cream — 200 g
• white wine vinegar — 30 g
• bay leaf — 1 g
• salt — 5 g
• all-purpose flour — 80 g
• egg — 100 g

Time & effort: about 2 hr 17 min (2 hr 16 min active) · effort: involved

Nutrition (per 100 g, engine-estimated): 41.9 kcal, 1.4 g protein, 2.7 g fat, 3.1 g carbs

Dietary: Contains meat · Contains dairy · Contains egg — engine-derived; double-check anything allergy-critical.

How it's cooked (12 steps)

1. Drain the soaked beans and put them in a large pot with the smoked knuckle, the water and the bay. Bring to a boil, skim, and simmer 1 hour 30 minutes until the beans are soft and the knuckle meat is coming away.
2. Lift out the knuckle, strip the meat and dice it, and return it to the pot.
3. In a frying pan, cook the onion in the lard over medium heat for 8 minutes until soft and translucent.
4. Stir in the flour and cook 3 minutes to a blond roux, stirring constantly.
5. Now take the pan completely off the heat, count to five, then stir in the paprika for about 10 seconds. Paprika turns bitter above roughly 150 C, and a scorched roux will ruin the whole pot with no way back. This off-the-heat move is the single most important technique in Hungarian cooking and it applies to every paprikás dish.
6. Loosen the roux with two ladles of hot bean liquid, whisking smooth, then pour it into the pot, 2 minutes.
7. Add the carrot and parsley root and simmer 15 minutes.
8. Make the csipetke: work the 80 g flour with the egg and a pinch of salt into a very stiff dough, 5 minutes, then flatten it and pinch off fingernail-sized pieces straight into the simmering soup. They are pinched, not cut, and the ragged edges are what hold the soup.
9. Boil 6 minutes until the csipetke float and are cooked through.
10. Add the sliced sausage and simmer 5 minutes.
11. Off the heat, stir in the sour cream, the vinegar and the salt, 2 minutes. Taste: Jókai bableves is a smoked, sour, thick soup and it should be all three at once. Named for the novelist Mór Jókai, whose wife is said to have kept a pot of it going.
12. Substitutions: pinto beans can stand in for the dried cranberry beans; other paprika sausage can stand in for the debreceni.

Dishes with a similar flavor shape

• Split Pea Soup with Smoked Ham — American
• Pap with Shisa Nyama — South African
• Gołąbki (Stuffed Cabbage Rolls) — Polish
• Ciorbă de Perișoare (Sour Meatball Soup with Borș and Lovage) — Romanian
• Rassolnik — Russian

Keep reading: what richness, umami, sourness mean in the flavor lexicon · the world's cuisines, by flavor.

See how this dish fits your palate — take the short taste test →

Every number above is Palate's engine-measured estimate, computed from this recipe's ingredients and techniques — not human-tasted ratings or reviews.