Lucicos - Transylvanian Cabbage Soup with Smoked Ribs
Budget Recipes Vegetables Romanian Soups and Stews
For me, lucicos (from the Hungarian lucskos kaposzta) is a special cabbage soup with smoked meat, a soup that should be slightly sweet and silky, with an intense thyme aroma. Every time I smell a bunch of dried thyme I automatically think of lucicos.
This is the perfect recipe for me. I've tried over time to change it (to add less smoked meat, more cabbage, more water, less or no roux at all) to make it lighter but the truth is none of them compared to the real lucicos, they were just ordinary cabbage soups.
Tip: use real ribs, naturally smoked with smoke.
Ingredients
1kg smoked pork ribs
1 small cabbage (about 650g)
2 onions
1 carrot
1/2 red bell pepper
2 canned tomatoes (or 150ml homemade tomato paste)
dried thyme
1 heaping tablespoon white flour
2 tablespoons oil
3-4 dill sprigs
salt, black pepper
Servings: 8
How to prepare lucicos - transylvanian cabbage soup with smoked ribs
- Cut the ribs between the bones and put them in a large pot. Cook on low heat, to release their fat and brown slowly. Stir occasionally so the ribs brown on all sides. It takes about 15 minutes, meanwhile prepare the vegetables.
- Finely chop the onions and pepper. Grate the carrot. Add these vegetables over the ribs, stir and let the onion soften a bit (about 3 minutes).
- Add 2.5 liters of water and cook with the lid slightly ajar for 1 hour, on medium-low heat (the soup should only simmer gently, otherwise it will reduce too quickly and too much). After this time, check the ribs, they should be cooked, a fork should go in easily.
- Clean the cabbage of outer leaves and cut off the core. Cut in half. Place each half cut side down and cut 1.5cm slices. Then turn 90 degrees and cut perpendicularly, also 1.5cm slices. This way you cut the cabbage into squares. Sprinkle plenty of salt and ground black pepper over the cabbage and knead it a bit, until you feel it loosening and softening a bit (if the cabbage is young you don't need to knead it too much).
- Add the tomatoes mashed with a fork along with a little sauce from them.
- Put the cabbage over the ribs and stir so it settles well in the pot. Now it will seem like the soup is quite thick, but it's okay, the cabbage will soften and at the end it will be just right.
- Place plenty of dried thyme sprigs on top. Pick the leaves off a few sprigs and sprinkle them in the soup.
- Cook covered for another 30 minutes, on low heat. Then taste the soup. If needed, add salt to taste. Also check that the cabbage is cooked. Remove the thyme sprigs.
- In a wide pan, add the oil and heat it well. Add the flour and stir just until it absorbs into the oil and looks like a paste. Thin it with 3-4 ladles of hot soup, so you get a roux that flows easily.
- Pour the roux into the soup, stir and let it simmer covered for another 5 minutes. Add the chopped dill and turn off the heat. Let it rest for half an hour before serving.
The ribs are being browned
Sauté the vegetables
Add 2 liters of water
After 1 hour of cooking
Add the tomatoes, diced cabbage and plenty of thyme
After another 30 minutes of cooking
After adding the roux
Lucicos
