♪ CHRISTOPHER KIMBALL: Welcome to Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

We help home cooks rediscover and recreate lost family recipes.

- My grandmother Margaret's was the absolute best.

- Don't put any pressure on us or anything!

CHRISTOPHER: We bring home cooks to our Boston studio...

I'm gonna stand back.

...where, along with our host and pastry chef Cheryl Day... - Isn't it great how food can take you back?

CHRISTOPHER: ...we teach them how to make their family recipe from scratch.

- You're gonna be able to bake this cake.

- I can do it.

CHRISTOPHER: Just the way it was made by, say, their grandmother.

- Beautiful!

- Grandma would not tolerate lumps.

CHRISTOPHER: Then we send them home to recreate that recipe for the toughest audience... - There it is.

CHRISTOPHER: ...their own family.

[laughing] CHRISTOPHER: Can our home cooks pull it off?

- Mom, that's really good.

- I think that's a yes.

CHRISTOPHER: Or will the recipe be lost forever?

Right here on Milk Street's My Family Recipe.

- That is delicious.

[upbeat music playing] ♪ Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ - Babe, do you want to make some coffee for us?

- Sure.

Hi, my name is Melissa Long, and I live in Henderson, Nevada with my husband Casey Long... Good morning... ...my little dog Boomer, and my kitty Lola.

Henderson is located about 20 minutes from the famous Las Vegas Boulevard.

I like to think that I know my way around the kitchen.

I try and keep a strong home dynamic with home-cooked meals at least once a week for Casey and I and his mom that lives a mile away.

♪ So, some of my favorite memories as a child was dinner with my grandparents, sitting around, hearing about their day, me being able to tell them about mine.

My mother is from South Korea.

My grandparents adopted her, and they raised me in Cincinnati, Ohio.

My grandmother and grandfather were influenced a lot by their heritages of Irish and German.

We cooked a lot of sausage, pork, sauerkraut.

My grandmother taught me how to cook.

My grandfather did all the grocery shopping.

It was wonderful.

♪ So, when I was 22, I up and moved to Vegas and I met my friend Tatiana.

We were both bartending at this big resort, and we just kind of took to one another.

So, Tatiana would make this soup for me.

It was my absolute favorite.

This sauerkraut soup is comforting.

It is hearty.

The ingredients reminded me so much of growing up in Cincinnati, my grandparents, and how they would cook.

- This is good.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

- I like this cheese.

- Get me moving for the day.

- Yeah.

So, since then, Tatiana has moved away, and now I'm trying to recreate this for my husband and my mother-in-law Linda.

Sit.

Good boy.

So, Chris and Cheryl, this is why I need your help-- to recreate this wonderful soup that Tatiana had made for me.

- See you.

- Have a good day.

These flavors are a part of my youth and my heritage, and I want to share this with them.

♪ - So, we're about to chat with Melissa Long.

She has that Eastern European sauerkraut soup.

- Yeah.

I'm really excited about it.

- Yeah.

So let's talk to her.

- Yeah.

Hi, Melissa.

- Hi, Melissa.

- Hi.

How are you guys?

- Great.

- We're so excited to hear about your sauerkraut soup.

- Growing up in Cincinnati, it just kind of brought back all my childhood memories and nostalgia.

Scoured the Internet for it.

I've never found a replica or anything close, so it's exciting.

- Is this sort of a throw-it-together soup, where people didn't have a recipe?

- We always took from Tatiana's memory, uh... from her growing up in a farm in Czech Republic.

It was like kind of a barbaric looking soup in the sense, like, there'd be bones sticking out of it.

And I tried it, and every bite you just got so much flavor.

I mean, her and I would eat the entire pot.

- We might do that, too.

- What, eat the whole thing?

- So, when's the last time you've had the soup?

- Oh, my goodness.

It's probably been eight or nine years.

- Is it, uh, smoky, is it spicy?

- You get a little bit of everything.

You have creaminess from the potatoes, uh, the, umami from the mushrooms.

The pork ribs that she would get would be already pre-smoked, so you had some smokiness from that, and then the Polish sausage had a little bit of spice to it.

- That sounds delicious.

Thank you for entrusting us to get it right for you.

- So, I'm excited.

Thank you for helping me.

- Absolutely.

- Well, you can thank us after you taste it, because we have some work to do, and, uh... we'll have you into Boston and, uh, give you a taste, which we hope will be successful, and then show you how we make it.

- Great.

I'm excited.

- Sounds good.

- Thank you so much.

- See you soon.

- Thanks, Melissa.

- So I think this is the one recipe on the show where there really isn't a starting recipe, per se.

Right?

I think this is going to be mostly working with her memory of it.

- We got this.

- Ha!

You're always so confident.

Okay, well, we can eat pot after pot.

- We can.

- Okay.

- That's not a bad thing.

♪ - You know, sauerkraut soup has a long tradition, especially in Eastern Europe.

In the early days, they might not have had a lot of ingredients, probably not much meat to it, 'cause meat was expensive.

It was an all-purpose, throw it in one pot.

As we say in Vermont, compost soup.

Now, it was eaten often for breakfast.

Water was the base, not stock, obviously, since that's inexpensive.

The version we're trying to develop now is called zelnacka.

It's the Czechoslovakian version, and this is the one that Melissa had tasted.

Now, this version does have meat, pork ribs, smoked sausage.

Her version had dried porcini mushrooms, which were rehydrated, potatoes and sauerkraut.

It's really important in this dish to have good kielbasa, and not everybody can get it, so we're going to have to solve that problem.

So, let's get going in the kitchen and try to figure out how to make Melissa's sauerkraut soup.

♪ - So, Melissa has a memory of this delicious sauerkraut soup.

This seems like not a very complicated soup, but there's a lot of directions we can go here, and we want to make sure the flavors are just right so that it will elicit memories of Melissa's past.

How is, um... the sauerkraut soup coming along?

- It's coming along really well.

- So we put Diane on the case and started out with a very basic soup.

- In this one, I think everything kind of tastes the same.

- So this version was good but not quite there yet.

We went back to the research drawing board and found many, many variations of this soup from all over this part of the world that added different ingredients like herbs and spices.

- We wanted more distinct flavors.

- So we tried it again.

Diane added some onion, which was not in the original, a few herbs and some paprika.

Got some really great high quality kielbasa and put that in the soup along with a ham hock.

That really jumped it up a couple notches.

So hopefully we're getting it right.

This is a little more involved than what Melissa first told us about.

- Sauerkraut soup 2.0.

- Yes.

- Wow, this looks great.

- New and improved, you can tell.

I mean, it looks a lot different.

- So now we've essentially got two soups here.

We have the base recipe, which is very good, very tasty.

And we have this sort of "souped up" version.

No pun intended.

- Mmm.

- Much different.

The-the rib meat is shredded, and then the kielbasa is cut into small cubes so it's easy to eat.

- I think we want to have Melissa taste both because the base soup, I think, is going to probably remind her of what Tatiana made for her.

But this new one with all these new ingredients, still very traditional, is delicious.

That's very good.

- Thank you.

- Mmm.

- Glad you like it.

I hope she likes it.

- So we're going out on a limb here.

We're potentially veering away from what Melissa remembers.

So, which one will she prefer?

♪ - Melissa.

So, are you ready?

- I am.

- So, uh, here is the soup.

This is the version that I think most closely represents what you told us about, which is, I think, a fairly straightforward, basic, everyday, delicious, right, soup?

- Yeah, yeah.

- So we'd like you to take a taste, so... - Does it look like hers?

- It looks and smells amazing.

I can't wait.

So rustic.

♪ Oh, my gosh.

That's so good.

That's amazing.

So I'm in the kitchen with Chris and Cheryl, and I'm tasting the soup.

And it is wonderful.

The meat was tender and falling off the bone.

It was just heartwarming.

- So does it have that smokiness...?

- And the umami that you described?

- Yes.

Aw, this reminds me of Tatiana.

- Aw, I love... - And my grandparents.

- I love that.

- Yeah, this is so comforting.

Sorry, I keep eating this.

- So, we do have a little surprise.

- Yes.

- Which is we made this and we liked it, but then we did a little more research and saw other recipes that had, you know, a little more spice to it or a little more herb, so that it's got a little more depth of flavor.

So that's the one we're going to make now.

And then you have to decide, you know... - Which you prefer.

- Okay.

- Do you want the VW or the Mercedes?

- Are you up for it?

- I am.

- Okay.

- Can't wait.

Thank you.

- Oh, good.

♪ So, I have already caramelizing here some onions, and then I'm going to make a roux.

So I'm going to add some flour.

I'm going to let this kind of brown.

- So they are changing the soup, and I'm excited and nervous.

If it's not broke, don't fix it.

But it can always be improved upon.

So let's see how we can improve it.

- One ounce porcinis, couple cups of hot water.

- Oh, those are nice.

- Let 'em hydrate.

- You know what?

Can you just dump in the spices for me?

So, we've got caraway seeds.

That's going to get those nice and toasty, and then the paprika.

And then he's chopping up those mushrooms.

That's going to get that umami that you mentioned.

- So we also decided to add a little more flavor, so dill.

Uh, and one of the things we do here a lot, and a lot of cuisines do it, is they use the stems of parsley or cilantro or dill, and they put that in with the soup at the beginning.

That adds a lot of flavor, and then we can add this part at the end.

- Oh, nice.

I never knew that.

As I'm seeing these ingredients, they all look good, but I'm hesitant about the dill.

I like dill on pickles.

I don't know if I like it in my soup.

- So now we're ready for mushrooms and liquid.

- Mushrooms.

- Yeah.

♪ Go ahead and put that in.

Beautiful.

And then if you could throw those stems in for me.

- It smells amazing.

- So, Melissa, you want to go ahead and put the broth in for us?

- Yes.

Just be careful.

Kind of pour it slowly in.

There you go.

Perfect.

And then we're going to let all of this liquid come up to a simmer.

- Well, this is a change, too, because the one we made originally was just water, which is how most of these were made.

- So that in itself is going to add a great depth of flavor.

- Another layer.

- So part of the change was, we have baby back ribs, which are meatier than regular spare ribs, but not everybody can get great smoky sausage or meats.

So smoked ham hocks are available really almost everywhere.

- Right.

- So we decided that was a good fallback, foolproof concept.

- Well, so now we're going to cover this.

- So top on for about two hours, and we'll come back.

♪ - Okay.

- Wow, look at that.

- Oh, wow.

- All right, so Chris is going to get all that meat out, shred it up for us.

- I'm looking at the soup, and it looks amazing.

I can't wait to try it.

- While he's shredding the meat, if I can get you to add the potatoes in.

So get all that in.

Okay.

And then I'm going to add this delicious kielbasa.

I mean, I think what you're going to find, I hope, is that we just added, in our humble opinion, a little bit more flavor, and that is looking delicious.

- So this is going to be, what, around 15, 20 minutes?

- About 15 minutes, yeah.

We do want the potatoes to get a little tender, and then we're gonna add the rest of the ingredients, and then we're going to eat it and see what you think.

- Yay.

♪ - We're ready to add the meat.

- All that work.

- This is going to be so delicious.

And, Melissa, if you would do the honors of adding the sauerkraut.

And then what we're going to do is let this come up to a boil again.

What we're going for is making sure that the potatoes are now cooked through.

Give that a little stir.

So, this is a sauerkraut brine.

We're going to add that in.

Again, more depth of flavor.

And then the rest of this beautiful dill.

Give that a good stir.

Salt.

So it's not going to make it salty.

It's just going to add flavor.

And a little bit of pepper, and then we'll have Chris do our final taste.

- Mmm.

- What do you think?

- Big flavor.

- Yeah.

Uh-huh.

- Yeah, it's great.

- Okay.

- So this is the new version, obviously.

So I think this has a lot more depth to it.

We like depth, so... - Well, I'm excited, but I want you to try it first, and let's see what you think.

Version one or version two?

- The dill and the smokiness... - Mm-hmm.

- You guys nailed it.

That's amazing.

It's kind of the old traditional soup, but modernized.

I like what they did.

- Do you like this one better?

You can tell us if you don't.

- I do like this one better.

- Yeah.

- This one has got more layers of flavor but still has all of the things that I loved about the first one.

The sauerkraut, the mushrooms, the pork.

- The comfort?

- Yes, the comfort.

You just keep going back for just one more bite.

- Yeah.

- Just one more bite.

- That's a good dish, you know.

Every time you take a spoonful, it's different.

- Yeah.

- Yeah, that's what I like.

- Do you think you're going to be able to do this at home?

- Oh, yes.

- I think this is quite doable.

- Yeah.

And delicious.

Thank you for bringing it to us.

- Thank you so much.

Thank you.

- Our pleasure.

♪ - All right.

We're gonna do this today.

So now the hard part, bringing this recipe home and doing it on my own.

Ribs, sauerkraut, and kielbasa.

I have to get this right and make it worth all of this effort.

For Milk Street's.

I'm trying to recreate this for my husband and my mother-in-law Linda.

And a ham hock.

I liked both soups and I can't decide which one to make, so I'm just going to make both and make them decide.

So, as you can see, we have a lot more going on on the Milk Street side.

A lot more flavor and depth being added.

This is more how my grandparents would have made it.

They were very simple with their ingredients.

We're going to see how the two stand up side by side.

Let's do this.

I'm definitely the most comfortable in the kitchen, but having this step-by-step recipe is such a relief.

Now I have a guideline to follow.

For the Milk Street version, do the same.

So, after seeing Cheryl and Chris make this, I'm applying what I learned in Boston to the memories that I have, to try and recreate both versions of the soup.

Then this gets the paprika, caraway seeds, AP flour, and dill.

I am very excited to use the tips from Chris and Cheryl and put their recipe to the test.

And porcinis.

We always left them whole.

And... for the Milk Street version, we're going to dice them.

Today I hope that both soups are a success and that I have a recipe to keep.

So this recipe is more than just a great tasting soup.

I have my memories of Tatiana and growing up into an adult here in Las Vegas.

And then it also reminds me of my childhood, at my grandparents', and sitting around the dinner table and listening to their stories of their childhood.

All right, hour and a half to two hours, and we're all set.

See you in a bit.

This soup holds a very special place in my heart.

All right, two hours.

Ooh.

I'm excited to bring this to my family.

It's perfect.

Wonderful.

And to have them try it and to have more memories.

Add the potatoes.

Okay, this one, before I add the potatoes, I got to take the meat out to shred.

Ooh.

Fall off the bone.

This is my mother-in-law's first time trying this soup, so I'm very interested to see which one she prefers.

Whereas Casey, I attempted to make a version of the soup for him years ago, so I don't know how much he remembers.

Sauerkraut.

I'm just excited to see how they respond to the soups.

Both of the soup bases, they smell amazing, And everything looks right on point.

If they like both soups, then I'll just rotate between both.

That would be great.

♪ - Hey.

Hi.

- Hello.

Hi.

Welcome.

Have a seat.

- What-what do you got here?

Why is there two?

- When, when I went to Boston, they recreated the soup.

- Oh, wow.

- So I couldn't decide which one to make for you guys, so I made both.

- Oh, nice.

- All right.

- So it's gonna be a taste-off.

- Nice, a taste test?

- Yes.

- Melissa is a great chef/cook.

I'm very excited and always excited to try all of, you know, Missy's recipes.

You know, she takes a lot of pride in, you know, refining her recipes, and this soup is included in that.

- Ooh.

- Ooh.

- My name is Linda Long, and I'm Melissa's mother-in-law.

Melissa cooks for me quite often.

Whenever they invite me, I come right over.

- Let's start with you, my lady.

- I've never tried it personally, so I'm really ready to have a good taste.

- This soup was comforting whenever I was missing my family.

So I'm glad I get to share it with you guys now, and we get to have our new memories.

- Yes.

- So whichever one you guys like better is the one that goes in my recipe keeper and gets passed down generations.

- Take my time, then.

To judge this.

- So my husband is my best friend.

I love him more than anything, and he is also my biggest critic.

So which soup will we make memories with?

- Now that I see there's two soups, you know, and being in Vegas, there's high stakes here to which one I choose.

- Let's go.

- All right, let's try it.

- Casey hates dill.

Casey hates pickles, so I'm not going to tell him that there's dill in it.

I'm just going to see if he can pick it out and then see which soup he prefers.

So, Casey, which one do you prefer?

- I... probably prefer the one on the right, because it's a little more sour and has a little more depth of flavor.

- And it has dill in it.

- And I don't even really, generally like dill.

But I think the sour... - So Milk Street wins?

- Both soups were really good.

One was a clear winner.

It had more visual appeal, and it actually had a little bit more of a tangy, sour taste to it, which I enjoyed more.

- Okay, Linda, which one do you like?

- I like them both, but I prefer this one here.

I like the one on the right better.

- Okay.

- Little more tang.

- Yeah, more tang.

The sourness, right?

- Yep.

- Yes.

- I did prefer the Milk Street version, but they were both very tasty.

- You know what?

Tasting it, I do prefer this one also, I think.

So, unanimously, we like the new and improved.

- We do, we do like the new and improved.

- Well, there's clearly a winner.

Milk Street's souped up version.

It still has all of the comforting, warm memories from my childhood.

Now that I've grown up, I appreciate the flavors, the spices, the herbs.

You remember me telling you about my friend Tatiana.

She would make this soup for me, without her even knowing that I was from Cincinnati and my grandparents were German and Irish-- their background.

She made this soup, and it just reminded me of home, so it just really takes me back to my childhood.

My grandparents have passed, but I wish that they were here today to try this soup with me.

I keep my grandparents' pictures up, and I actually keep my grandmother's recipes in my recipe app, so I don't ever forget the taste of home.

I think my grandmother's reaction to this soup would be joy.

She would be so happy to see that I'm making good, wholesome food, and making family memories.

- Hi, bud.

- Hey.

This soup brings back a lot of nostalgia.

I have my memories of Tatiana, and reminds me to let people know, in the moment, how important they are.

So I don't think I ever told her how much this soup meant to me and how special it was and why.

- Missy, you're going to have to get used to making this a lot, and I will take a little more.

- I'm so grateful that I got to meet Chris and Cheryl, and that I learned to make this soup.

This is something that I will pass on to the next generations.

I look forward to serving it with my holiday dishes.

- You know, everyone's wrong about pickling.

And the reason I found out about that was I was in Tokyo a few years ago, and I was with Elizabeth Andoh, she's a well-known cookbook author and teaches the art of Japanese home cooking.

And we made pickles in 15 minutes.

And a quick pickle is very common, not just in Japan, but in other cultures.

So we're going to do it right now, and it's less than half an hour, and it's easy to do.

Two things that go together frequently, especially in the Japanese table, are daikon radish and carrots.

But you could certainly do anything you like, like radishes, for example.

Pound of each cut into matchsticks.

And we're going to use just a teaspoon of salt at this point.

And then we're going to massage the salt into the vegetables.

So what we're trying to do here is to get some of the water out from the carrots and the daikon, and we're going to let this sit a few minutes.

We'll pour off the excess liquid, the water, and then we'll put these into a pickling brine, essentially, liquid, for just 15 minutes, and then you're good to go.

You can let it sit longer, of course, in the fridge.

Some recipes, you can do this in a plastic storage bag if you like.

You don't have to do it in a bowl, but you want to really get your hands in there and massage the vegetables.

And this will mean that when you pickle them in the vinegar and the sugar and the salt and the water, you're going to get a crispier pickle, because you've got rid of some of that excess water.

Now I can really feel it, I can feel that water coming out.

They're getting a little slippery.

They're losing some of their volume.

So we'll just set that aside for about five minutes.

Meanwhile, we'll make the pickling liquid.

So this is so simple to do.

All you need is water, three-quarter cup.

Unseasoned rice vinegar, a three-quarter cup, some sugar, of course.

And a little bit of salt.

And we'll just whisk that together.

There are two different kinds of pickles, really.

There's a quick pickle like this, and then there are fermented pickles, which take more time with salt.

So this is the quick version.

Now, while those vegetables sit for a minute, let me show you a thing I really like to use.

You can get these online.

You put the vegetables in here with the pickling liquid.

The thing that's nice is the top goes on, and then you can turn it, and this presses down.

So you end up keeping everything under the liquid just by turning this dial on top.

So if you don't have one of those, we'll just use a bowl and a plate.

But if you do a lot of it, they come in different sizes.

It's a really nice way to easily submerge the vegetables in the pickling liquid.

So it's been five minutes.

Let me just squeeze out any of that excess liquid.

Now, we're going to put that in our pickling liquid, and I'm going to squeeze out whatever I can there.

So the liquid is right there at the top of the vegetables.

More liquid will come out as these sit.

We'll just put a plate on top just to keep it submerged.

Now you can wrap it with some plastic wrap, put it in the fridge.

You really only need about 15 minutes, and you will have quick pickles, but you can leave it for a few hours if you like, or even overnight.

And that's the secret to how to make a quick pickle.

Recipes and episodes from this season of My Family Recipe are available at MilkStreetTV.com/MFR Access our content any time to change the way you cook.

Funding for this series was provided by the following.

Mowi Salmon comes ready to cook.

Ready to grill, ready to season, or pre-seasoned and ready to eat.

In an assortment of flavors for an assortment of people.

Mowi Salmon.

♪ ♪