Recipe – Kreatosoupa – Traditional Greek Beef Soup

Kreatosoupa: Traditional Greek Meat Soup Made With Beef

The perfect day for a warming soup , MGG (My Greek God), went off first thing with his shopping list and was back in two shakes of a lamb’s tail with all the ingredients for “Kreatopsoupa”, that’s Greek for meat soup.

We have had an Arctic cold front “Ariadne”, which drifted in at the tail-end of last week wreaking havoc, especially on the Aegean island of Skopelos.

Snow on Skopelos

Kreatosoupa:

Greek Beef soup

When my mother made this, years ago, back in Yorkshire, we called it stew.

Invariably it had yummy suet dumplings floating in it.

Beef stew with suet dumplings – Photo Food.com

I’ve tried suet dumplings out on my family and it’s definitely a no no.

What a strange lot they are!

All my family though, including sweet Melina, my five year old granddaughter love stew, minus the dumplings, so that’s what will warm us up on this cold and snowy day.

Ingredients for 4 – 6 people

Ingredients for traditional Greek” Kreatosoupa” – Meat soup.

1 kilo beef, cut into bite – sized pieces

6-7 large carrots, peeled and sliced

5 – 6 large potatoes, peeled and cubed

A large bunch of celery

3 – 4 large onions, peeled and sliced

(100 ml Olive oil, optional)

Salt & pepper to taste

Method

Many Greeks, boil the potatoes and carrots whole and the celery, washed but uncut, in the soup, and remove from soup after cooking, and serve separately on a plate.

This step is optional, add 100 ml olive oil to the pan, heat and add meat and brown, turning frequently, once the meat is browned proceed in the following way:

Half fill a large saucepan with water and bring to the boil

Add meat, (I use kitchen scissors to cut into bite – size pieces, much easier than a knife), sliced carrots, sliced onions, cubed potatoes, and celery.

Again, after washing the celery, I finely cut it into very small pieces, using kitchen scissors, straight into the pan.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Give it all a good mix, bring to the boil, lower heat and simmer for a good three hours, giving it the occasional stir.

Kreatosoupa: – Traditional Greek Meat Soup, Made With Beef

Some recipes advice you to skim off the foam that forms at the beginning of boiling, I never do this as I feel as though that would be throwing away some of the flavor and goodness.

As long as you give the soup a few good stirs when the foam starts to appear it soon disappears.

Once the beef is tender and soft the soup is ready.