Polish-Czech Mushroom Soup

It is part of my husband’s family’s Christmas Eve tradition to enjoy this soup with homemade pierogi. While you probably won’t like it if you don’t like sauerkraut, it isn’t too sour because you cool it down a bit and add broth to it. Also, the cans of sauerkraut can be hard to find, so another option is to drain sauerkraut and use that juice. Then you can use the sauerkraut to make pierogi.

2 – 16 oz. cans of sauerkraut juice
1 – 8 oz. can beef broth
1 lb fresh mushrooms – cut up in to 1/8ths (pie shaped)
4 tbsp butter – not margarine
2 tbsp flour
1 small onion finely chopped
Small noodles (like the itty bitty stars)

In a large pot, combine sauerkraut juice and 1 cup of water, beef broth and mushrooms. Bring to boil and turn down to simmer about 1/2 hour.

While that starts to simmer, in a fry pan, melt butter on low to medium heat. Add onion to saute just until tender. Add flour and stir with a whisk into a rue. Add a couple of cups of the broth to this and continue with whisk to keep it from getting lumpy.  Dump this back in the pot with the mushrooms.

Let this simmer about 30 minutes. Taste about half way through and if it is too tart, you can add more water.

While this is simmering, cook your noodles. Put noodles in a bowl and ladle the soup over the noodles.