Hungarian Jókai Bean Soup with Pork Hock and Dumplings

The evening before, sort and rinse the beans, place them in a bowl and cover with the 1000 ml of soaking water. Put the pork hock in a separate container and add the 1500 ml of soaking water so it is covered. Cover both containers and refrigerate for 12 hours. The next day, drain both soaking waters and rinse the ingredients; do not use the soaking water in the soup.

After soaking, divide the pork hock into 2 large pieces, keeping the edible skin. Dice the carrots, parsley root and celeriac into pieces about 1 cm across, finely chop the onion and crush the garlic. Cut the sausage into slices about 5 mm thick. After handling the raw pork hock, wash your hands, knife and cutting board.

Combine 100 g of flour with the whole egg and 1 g of salt. Knead for about 5 minutes to form a compact, fairly stiff dough; do not add water. Cover and rest for 10 minutes while finishing the vegetable preparation. Pinch off small pieces the size of a small pea, flatten them slightly and arrange in a single layer on a plate. Cover and refrigerate until needed for cooking the soup.

In a pot of about 6 l, cover the pork hock with the 2500 ml of water reserved for the soup, then add the bay leaves and all the pepper. Bring to a boil, lower the heat and simmer gently with the lid slightly ajar for about 90 minutes; the meat should start to soften. Do not add salt yet, as the pork hock and sausage are salty. Keep the broth as the soup base; do not drain it, and do not skim off the fat.

Toward the end of the pork hock's cooking time, cover the drained beans with the remaining 1000 ml of fresh water for their initial boil. Bring to a boil and boil briskly without a lid for 10 minutes, then drain and add the beans to the pot with the pork hock and broth. With the lid slightly ajar, cook together at a gentle simmer for about 60–75 minutes. After the first 30 minutes, add the carrots, parsley root and celeriac. The beans should be completely tender, without a hard or chalky center, the vegetables soft and the meat and skin tender and easy to cut. If the beans or pork hock are still tough, continue simmering before thickening the soup.

While the beans finish cooking, heat all the lard in a frying pan. Fry the sausage for 3–4 minutes until lightly browned, then transfer it to a plate, leaving the fat in the pan. Add the onion and cook over medium heat for 5–7 minutes until soft. Sprinkle in the remaining 30 g of flour and stir for about 2 minutes until lightly golden. Remove the pan from the heat, stir in the sweet paprika and garlic, then set aside for 5 minutes. Once the beans and pork hock are tender, gradually whisk about 200 ml of hot broth taken from the soup pot into the roux until smooth; pour it all back into the soup.

Once the beans and pork hock are tender, lift out the meat, cut it with the edible skin into cubes about 1.5 cm across and return to the pot. Remove the bay leaves. Add the fried sausage and all the dumplings, then simmer gently for 10–12 minutes, stirring from the bottom; the dumplings must be cooked in the center too. In a bowl, blend 120 g of sour cream with a ladleful of hot soup, pour into the pot and heat gently for 2–3 minutes without boiling hard. Taste and only now add some or all of the remaining 3 g of salt if needed. Divide the soup into 8 servings, spooning a little of the remaining 60 g of sour cream onto each, and serve hot.