Sausage and Sauerkraut Soup with Paprika and Dill

When Melissa Long moved from Cincinnati to Las Vegas in the early 2000s, she worked in a casino and became friends with a woman named Tatiana, who was from Czechoslovakia (now the Czech Republic and Slovakia). Occasionally Tatiana prepared a rustic, comforting soup that included pork ribs, smoked Polish sausage, sauerkraut, porcini mushrooms and cubed potatoes and that was lightly thickened with a roux of butter and flour. “She never used a recipe,” Long recalled. “It was from her memories growing up on her parents’ farm outside Prague. It’s probably been 10 years since I’ve had this soup and I still dream of it. The flavors hit every taste bud.” The broth, she said, was light and umami-rich while the pork was fall-off-the-bone tender and the sausage brought tasty fat and smokiness. Long searched the Internet for a similar soup, but had no luck, so she turned to Milk Street. Her description seemed to match a classic Czech soup called zelňačka, which means “cabbage.” For our version of Tatiana’s soup, we included a few ingredients commonly used in zelňačka—paprika, caraway and fresh herbs—along with a ham hock for a smokiness. We shred the tender meat off the bones and return it to the broth at the end. We recommend seeking out good-quality kielbasa from a meat market or butcher, as the sausage’s seasoning and smokiness has a big impact on the flavor of the dish.