Kurent’s soup

Old holiday and everyday traditions in and around Ptuj are extremely interesting, and always have some connection to traditional food. Shrovetide used to be the symbolic start of a new year, and the time when farmers praised a good past year and asked for abundance in the new year at a richly spread table. Kurent’s soup from Ptuj is certainly one of the more interesting dishes. Its origins are rather poorly researched, however the recipe can be found in a handful of old cookbooks.

Ingredients
½ kg of smoked goose
30–35 dag of soup vegetables (carrot, parsley, celery, a few cabbage leaves or a cabbage core)
bay leaf
pepper, salt
grated egg pasta
30 dag of flour
2 eggs
10 dag of pork lard with greaves
parsley or chives

Instructions
Cut the goose into pieces, wash them well and put on a stove in cold water. After simmering the goose for a while, add the chopped and washed vegetables, the bay leaf and pepper. Let the soup simmer. Knead the eggs and flour into firm dough. Grate the dough, spread it on a cloth and let it dry. When the grated pasta is dry, sauté it in lard. Add some goose soup and let the pasta simmer for around 25 minutes. While cooking the pasta, let the soup simmer if the meat is not yet tender, or take it off the stove. Before serving the dish, add the meat and the remaining soup to the pasta. Add salt to taste.

SOURCE: Črtomir Rosič, Discover Ptuj