Holy Thursday Soup

Easter time is a special time. The first bulbs appear, wild herbs can be found, the first plants sprout and you can enjoy the blooming and fragrant buds. Nature awakens and you can literally watch it grow. To drive away the winter and welcome the spring, I have here a recipe for a Maundy Thursday soup. Maundy Thursday soup is one of the oldest customs. The beauty of it is that you need 9 wild herbs and they should be local. I always do this on a walk through the surrounding fields and woodlands. I take a cloth bag and a pair of scissors with me and swing on the bike to collect the first edible wild herbs I come across on my little excursion.

If you are already familiar with herbs, you can give free rein to your creativity. Important is,
– that they are edible wild herbs,
– that you pick a handful of each variety and, of course, only the most beautiful leaves, flowers and stems and
– that there are 9 different kinds of wild herbs.

Wild herbs contain many more minerals and vitamins than the food we buy in the supermarket. Therefore, the Maundy Thursday soup also helps to get rid of spring fatigue and gives us more strength again. It also has a cleansing effect on the body.

The number nine is important here, because three times three is nine. It is a sacred number.

My 9 found wild herbs are as follows:

There is unfortunately no photo of the chickweed, because it was raining and stormy when I picked it.

The soup is prepared as follows:

First, peel the onion and cut it into small pieces. While you sauté the onions in the butter, peel the potatoes and cut them into smaller pieces.
Add them to the onions in the pot and let it cook for about 10 minutes, stirring every now and then. Finally, deglaze with the vegetable broth and let it simmer gently for another 5 minutes.

In the meantime, cut the bread into no cubes and fry them in a little olive oil in a pan. You can season with a little salt, pepper and thyme.

Now wash the wild herbs very well. I wash and rinse them about 3 times with water. Then I put them in a salad spinner and spin them dry. Then they are chopped into small pieces. Now turn down the stove temperature so that the two-leaf potato mixture no longer boils and add the wild herbs. The soup must now simmer for another 5 minutes. It is important that the soup does not boil, otherwise the vitamins of the wild herbs will be lost. Now add the crème fraîche and puree the soup. Then it is ready to serve.

Bon appetite!