Summary

Ingredients

• 1 ham bone (if possible from Holstein ham)
• 3 liters water
• 250 g peas, pods (or frozen reen peas)
• 250 g parsnip (s), diced
• 2 leeks, cut into thin rings
• 0.5 ½ cup herbs, finely chopped (thyme, marjoram, tarragon, dill, parsley, chervil)
• 0.5 ½ celeriac, finely diced
• 200 g prunes
• 125 g apple rins, dried
• 500 g pear (s), waxy pears (bacon pears), peeled, quartered, pitted
• Salt and pepper, freshly ground
• 1 pinch (s) nutmeg, freshly grated
• 2 tablespoon vinegar, (brandy vinegar)
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 tablespoon butter
• 2 tablespoon flour
• 800 g eel (s), fresh (or 400 eel fillet from the fishmoner)

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Instructions

1. You can get the ham bone by pre-ordering from a butcher you trust. Ask in good time.
2. First bring the ham bone to a boil in a large saucepan with 3 liters of water. Then cook under the lid at 3/4 heat for an hour.
3. In the meantime, put the prunes and apple rings in a large bowl, pour hot water over them (until everything is just covered) and leave to soak.
4. As soon as the ham bone has cooked for 1 hour, add the vegetables (peas, parsnips, leeks, celery) to the simmering ham broth and reduce to half the heat. After 30 minutes, remove the bone, scrape off the meat that is still attached and put it back in the soup.
5. Now add the baked fruit (plums, apples) with the soaking water to the soup.
6. Now knead the softened butter with the flour in a cup and use it to stir the soup until creamy and then cook for 3 minutes so that the flour taste is lost. Season to taste with vinegar, sugar, nutmeg, salt and pepper.
7. Now the eel:
8. If you want to make an effort, fillet the fresh eel yourself. Head the fish and cut it with a sharp (!) Knife from the head end slightly cutting along the middle bone to the tail end and repeat the whole thing from the other side. Now lay the fish on the skin side and start to separate the skin from the fillet from the tail end. To do this, fix the skin with your fingers and work your way towards the head end again with a sharp knife at a flat angle. Then cut the fillets into pieces approx. 1 cm wide. Okay, most of them will order the fillets in the fish shop, which is absolutely fine.
9. Now the pieces of eel and the chopped herbs are added to the soup. Let it steep for 15 minutes on a low heat, then the soup is ready to serve.
10. As a side dish there is the pear. These are peeled, quartered, pitted and simmered in lightly sugared water over medium heat for 10-15 minutes. Then drain and let it cool down. The pears are served cold with the soup.
11. If you like, you can add dumplings cooked separately in salted water to the soup. A nice garnish for soup is fresh, chopped sorrel, if you like.
12. The soup polarizes: either you love it or you don`t like it at all. Anyone who asks for a second after the first plate is addicted to the soup and will remain so.
13. If you don`t like fish (there should be there too), you leave out the eel and you have a lost eel soup. It also tastes really delicious and Hanseatic.