Bean Soup with Ground Meat

Cooking method

1. Step 1:

   

   To make this bean-and-meat soup especially good, use two kinds of meat — chicken breast and beef — that you'll grind into the meat yourself. You'll also need vegetables: onion, carrots, bell pepper, tomato, and fresh herbs. Use dried beans — they make for a heartier soup. Sunflower oil is for sautéing, and garlic, bay leaf, and dill add the aroma.

2. Step 2:

   

   Be sure to soak the beans in cold water for at least an hour. Then drain and rinse them.

3. Step 3:

   

   Cover the beans with fresh water and put them on to cook. Cook for 2 hours over high heat from the moment they boil — by then almost all the water will have boiled off. You can boil the beans ahead of time.

4. Step 4:

   

   While the beans cook, make the ground meat — run the meat through a grinder, preferably twice.

5. Step 5:

   

   Prep the vegetables too — wash and peel them.

6. Step 6:

   

   While the water comes to a boil in the soup pot, dice the onion and bell pepper.

7. Step 7:

   

   Dice the carrots small as well.

8. Step 8:

   

   Add the chopped carrots to the boiling water first.

9. Step 9:

   

   After 5 minutes, add the bay leaf to the pot with the carrots.

10. Step 10:

    

    Add the ground meat to hot sunflower oil in a skillet and start frying over high heat, breaking it up and stirring so it crumbles. Fry the meat for about 3 minutes.

11. Step 11:

    

    Then add the chopped onion and pepper and half a tablespoon of salt to the meat, and keep frying over medium heat, stirring, in an uncovered skillet.

12. Step 12:

    

    Meanwhile, dice the tomato small.

13. Step 13:

    

    After 10 minutes, add the tomato to the meat, stir, and cook the meat and vegetables for another 10 minutes over medium heat.

14. Step 14:

    

    After 10 minutes, add the cooked beans to the pot with the carrots.

15. Step 15:

    

    After the beans, add the meat and vegetable mixture to the soup.

16. Step 16:

    

    Salt the soup and stir.

17. Step 17:

    

    Cover the pot and let the soup simmer over low heat for 5 minutes.

18. Step 18:

    

    Now finely chop the fresh herbs and garlic cloves with a knife.

19. Step 19:

    

    Add the herbs and garlic to the soup, stir, and turn off the heat after a minute. Let the soup rest, covered, for another 5 minutes, then serve.

20. Step 20:

    

    Ladle the tasty bean-and-meat soup into bowls and serve for lunch. It's even better with a spoonful of sour cream stirred in.