Bouneschlupp, the green bean soup that sees Luxembourg through winter

Bouneschlupp is one of those dishes that looks like very little on a menu and turns into the best thing you eat all day once the weather turns cold. It’s a green bean soup, nothing grander, and it has everything I like about Luxembourgish cooking, garden produce, a bit of smoked pork and no interest whatsoever in showing off. Here’s what goes in it, when it makes sense and where I’d have it.

What is Bouneschlupp?

The country’s official portal includes it in its list of typical dishes and describes it as a green bean soup to which carrots, onions, leeks, celery, potatoes, milk or cream and smoked bacon can be added. That list of optional extras says a lot, because there’s no single version. Every household makes it with what’s to hand, and the recipe shifts from kitchen to kitchen.

The recipe on the Luxembourg Youth Hostels blog, which I’m using as a secondary reference, starts with 500 grams of green beans, or half green and half flat beans, plus diced potato, onion, bacon and vegetable stock, and finishes with slices of Mettwurscht, a smoked sausage, and a spoonful of crème fraîche. Think of a thick, smoky bean broth rather than a smooth soup.

A soup with farmhouse roots

The youth hostels present it as a farmers’ dish, simple and nourishing, made with local ingredients. That fits what the official portal says about Luxembourgish cooking in general, food tied to the land, hearty and designed to feed a mostly rural population for centuries. It also features in Ketty Thull’s recipe book, whose 2011 edition lists it with Judd mat Gaardebounen and Kniddelen among the classics worth rediscovering season by season.

For me the appeal lies in the balance. The green beans bring freshness, the potato thickens, the bacon and sausage add smokiness and the cream rounds it off. It isn’t a refined velouté, it’s a chunky soup you eat with bread.

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When do people eat it?

Mostly in winter. The youth hostels call it the perfect dish for frosty days, and the official portal lists it among the food served at the Buergbrennen, the bonfire festival held on the first Sunday after carnival, alongside Ierzebulli, a pea soup, and mulled wine. If you’re travelling then, having it by the fire is the best way to try it.

The official portal paints the scene well. Every village builds its own Buerg, a huge pyre of straw, branches and last Christmas’s trees, usually put together by youth associations, and lights it at nightfall to drive the winter away, often after a torchlit procession. In some villages, the portal adds, the honour of lighting it goes to the most recently married couple or to a local figure. Around it there’s food on the grill, the soup and the mulled wine, and the party carries on long after the fire has burnt down to embers. More on the festival in Buergbrennen.

Where I’d order it

In a traditional bistro, in winter, as a starter. I can’t give you a list of restaurants with Bouneschlupp on the menu because no official source publishes one, and the offer changes with the season. What I’d do is look for it on the board or the menu by the door and ask whether it’s made in-house. For choosing an area and a type of place, see where to eat in Luxembourg.

To drink, the youth hostels suggest a Luxembourg white or a local beer, and both work for me. A Moselle Riesling or Auxerrois in a bistro, a local beer if it’s a quick winter lunch.

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Making it at home

Few Luxembourg recipes travel as easily to a British kitchen. Green beans and flat beans are in every supermarket, and a good smoked sausage will stand in for Mettwurscht. Fry onion and bacon, add the beans and potato to soak up the flavour, cover with vegetable stock and simmer until everything is tender. Five minutes before the end, in go the sausage slices, and a spoonful of crème fraîche on top when you serve. That gives you a winter supper that explains the country it comes from rather well, alongside the other dishes I gather in Luxembourg food.

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