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Hideg Meggyleves

🇭🇺 Hungary Drinks & Soups easy 15 min (mostly pitting) prep · 20 min (plus 3 hr chilling) cook serves 6 bowls 3 hr 30 min start to table ~240 kcal per serving surprise

A cold, pink, creamy cherry soup that Hungarians serve before the main course. Dessert first, except they insist it is not dessert.

Sour cherries are genuinely tart, and the sour cream liaison adds lactic tang and body rather than plain sweetness. With a pinch of salt and warm spice underneath, it sits closer to a chilled borscht than to a milkshake, which is exactly why it can open a meal.

🍒🥣
The story

Meggy, the tart sour cherry, floods Hungarian markets for a few weeks in early summer, and this soup is what happens to a lot of it. The fruit is simmered sweet-sour with spices, finished with a sour cream liaison, then chilled and served as a first course, a fixture of the country's sweet-leaning savory cooking.

Neighboring Austrians, Poles, Slovaks, and Germans all have versions, and Hungarian emigrants, including Jewish families, carried it to North America. Households argue about the details, red wine or none, cloves or plain cinnamon, but never about the temperature: properly cold.

Fair warning: Sweet fruit soup as a starter confuses almost everyone at first, too sweet for soup people and too tart for dessert people, so serve small bowls the first time.
The recipe

Ingredients

  • 1 kg (about 2 lb) fresh sour cherries, pittedjarred morello cherries work off-season; drain them and cut the sugar back
  • 1.5 L (6 cups) water
  • 80 g (about 6 tbsp) sugaradjust to your cherries
  • 1 cinnamon stick
  • 4 whole clovesoptional
  • 1 strip lemon zest
  • 1 pinch salt
  • 240 ml (1 cup) sour creamplus extra to serve
  • 1 tbsp all-purpose flour
  • 100 ml (scant 1/2 cup) dry red wineoptional, a common household addition

Method

  1. Bring the water, sugar, cinnamon, cloves, lemon zest, and salt to a simmer and give it 5 minutes.
  2. Add the pitted cherries and simmer gently for 8 to 10 minutes, until tender but not collapsing.
  3. In a bowl, whisk the sour cream and flour until completely smooth.
  4. Temper the mixture: whisk in hot cherry broth one ladle at a time, three or four ladles total, until it is warm and pourable.
  5. Stir the tempered cream back into the pot.
  6. Simmer very gently for 2 to 3 minutes to cook out the flour, without letting it boil hard, or the cream can split.
  7. Add the red wine if using and give it 2 more minutes.
  8. Remove the cinnamon stick, cloves, and zest.
  9. Cool, then refrigerate at least 3 hours until properly cold.
  10. Taste cold and adjust with sugar or a squeeze of lemon, since chilling mutes sweetness, then serve in chilled bowls with a swirl of sour cream.
Shopping notes
Fresh sour cherries have a short early-summer window at farmers markets; jarred morello cherries from European groceries or Trader Joe's are the reliable year-round route. Do not use sweet dessert cherries alone; if stuck with them, add a good squeeze of lemon.
Cross-checked against: tastehungary.com · en.wikipedia.org
Kitchen notes

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