Sodd: A comforting, nourishing soup
This lamb broth is a Norwegian comfort food
Photo: Tine Mediebank
Sodd is a tasty soup with a funny name.
Lynn Moen
Tasty Traditions
These are the instructions Bestemor (my mother, Caroline Norman) gave to my daughter Martha so she could make it for her grandfather after his stroke, so he would have something good and nourishing to eat for lunch—you might consider it Norwegian “Chicken Soup.” This was also a staple for Bestefar in his last illness.
As I remember sodd from my childhood, the meat was lamb ribs, cut up, and we chewed the meat off the bones. They were tender and fell off the bone very nicely.
We would have a dinner plate and a soup plate. The sodd would be dished into the soup plate. We would put boiled potatoes on the dinner plate and fish out meat and vegetables (which weren’t as finely cut as in this version) to eat with a fork, and a little broth to moisten the potatoes. The broth, with some of the vegetables, was eaten with a spoon.
Lamb or mutton was common in the part of Norway where our family came from, and this is just one variation of this dish.
Sodd: Norwegian Lamb Soup
1/2 leg of lamb
1 tsp. peppercorns
2 1/2 inches water (to cover meat)
1 stalk celery, diced
salt to taste
3 onions, cut thin
1 1/2 to 2 lbs peeled carrots, diced
1/3 cup rice
Have butcher cut lamb as thin as possible. Cut into tiny pieces and trim off fat. Keep bones separate, wrapped in nylon net or cheesecloth so they don’t get lost. Tie this carefully, to keep bones out of the finished soup.
Boil the meat and bones, adding water as needed. Skim foam off.
Add vegetables and stir as you go along. Half an hour before finish, look at the celery and onions. When they are transparent, add rice.
Be sure to remove the bone pouches before serving.
This article originally appeared in the Feb. 6, 2015, issue of the Norwegian American Weekly.
