How to cook a traditional Icelandic Lamb Soup?

Icelandic Lamb Soup (kjötsúpa) may not be one of a kind as most countries have their own famous meat soup or stew to brag about. The Russians have Borscht; the Hungarians have the Hungarian goulash soup, there are Moroccan lamb soup and Irish lamb stew. The Icelandic Lamb Soup is, however, an Icelandic staple and is probably the dish that best captures the essence of “traditional Icelandic” when it comes to gastronomy.

AN AUTHENTIC ICELANDIC DISH

When it comes to traditional Icelandic food, kjötsúpa is the dish that you must try so you can say that you’ve really tasted true Icelandic cooking. It’s hearty and full of nutrients, tasty and warms you to the core.

Kjötsúpa is easy to make and a favorite among Icelanders. While every family might have a slight variation to the recipe, on the whole, it’s always the same. It is most common to cook kjötsúpa in the fall when the lambs have just been brought in for slaughter, and the meat is fresh, but now that we all have freezers and stores offer fresh lamb year-round, kjötsúpa is a dish for the whole year. Some even find it essential on camping trips. However, it is never more fitting than on a cold winter’s eve. The soup is attributed legendary healing powers, and we believe that as it is packed full of vitamins.

The kjötsúpa was a lifesaver when food was generally hard to come by, and most every - thing had to be locally sourced. Traditionally the soup is made with fresh lamb, rutabagas, carrots, and potatoes that are boiled together for 1-2 hours. It was usually made in big batches as it was just as good, if not better, the day after. Some people even made the same soup again and again by adding water and a few more pieces of lamb and vegetables to their already made soup.

Chef Finnbjörnsson keeps our super model lamb soup warm for the shot.

Unfortunately, there are cooks out there that spoil the good name of the Icelandic lamb soup; they add ingredients that were never meant to be used, use pre-cooked meat, subpar meat, even smoked meat, instead of fresh meat, and generally disregard the revered origin of the kjötsúpa.

WHEN THE BASICS ARE BEST

One of our favorite chefs, Úlfar Finnbjörnsson, is a stickler for the “rules” when it comes to the Icelandic kjötsúpa. He abhors the practice of adding rice, stating that rice would have been scarce for the housewives of yesteryear. “Perhaps they would have used some kind of grain, like rolled oats or barley, just to add a little thickness to it, but I’m not a firm believer in that either,” says Chef Finnbjörnsson. “What I am sure of though, is that they did not use rice.”

“It’s such an easy recipe that sometimes cooks think they can just make it however they feel like. But that’s doing this wonderful soup a great disservice. The soup needs to be as authentic as possible, no matter where it’s made. And I’m never as proud as when I’ve served my guests a bowl of great Icelandic kjötsúpa,” he adds.

Icelandic kjötsúpa is, after all, based on what was on hand back in the day before commercial flights and big cargo boats became an everyday thing. It was made cheaply, using the boniest and least expensive parts of the lamb, the neck, shoulder and shanks (usually these parts are sold sawed into pieces and referred to as soup meat). The vegetables; rutabagas, carrots and potatoes, are easily grown here by the Arctic Circle, and they also keep well in cold storages so they would have been handy throughout the winter. Other vegetables can, of course, be added such as cauliflower, cabbage, onions, celery and kale.

THE SECRET INGREDIENT

One “secret” ingredient to Icelandic kjötsúpa is a mixture of dried herbs. In any grocery store in Iceland, you can buy rather large packets of soup herbs that are almost solely used to make kjötsúpa. The mix contains dried parsnip, carrots and leek and adds that little extra to the soup’s flavor. Some say the herbs are redundant, but for others they are essential. Throughout the ages, the healing power of wild herbs has been a part of the Icelandic culture, so perhaps the housewives of yore used Arctic thyme, Icelandic moss (fjallagrös), birch leaves, bog bilberry, and even juniper, to add flavor to their soup, all hand-picked in the unspoiled mountains above their farm. Not coincidentally, this is precisely the kind of fare that the Icelandic lamb grazes throughout the short summer months, giving it its distinctive and wild taste.

ICELANDIC KJÖTSÚPA serves 4-6

1 kg (2.2 lbs) shoulder of lamb, sawed (soup meat)

1 ½ tsp. salt

1.6 l (7 cups) water

300 g (10.5 oz) carrots, peeled and cut into large pieces

300 g (10.5 oz) rutabagas, peeled and cut into large pieces

300 g (10.5 oz) small or medium potatoes, cut in half

2 whole onions, peeled and cut into wedges

1 leek, diced

2 celery stalks

1/3 headed cabbage, diced

1 tsp. freshly ground pepper

1 ½ dl (2/3 cup) soup herbs

Place the lamb meat in a large pot and pour in the water, so the meat is submerged. Add salt and place the pot on a stove. Bring slowly to a boil and let boil gently for 30 minutes. Scoop off any fat and froth that forms on the surface. Add the fresh vegetables except for the cabbage into the pot and boil gently for 20 minutes. Add the cabbage, pepper and soup herbs and boil gently for 10-20 minutes or until the meat starts to become loose from the bones.

Because the kjötsúpa is chunky, it’s good to have an extra plate handy where you can cut up the meat before adding it back into to your bowl with the rest of the soup.