We are still in the middle of flu season, so this is the right time to cook some pork stock, the best possible medicament against influenza virus, which supports your immune system in recovering. In most Hungarian families, hen or pork stock is an obligatory part of Sunday lunch, it’s not a simple dish, but the base of our existence. In Hungary we use orja, which is the meaty spine of pork, and marrow bones to make pork bone soup. Bones are unexpensive, they don’t burden a typical family’s food budget.

The following pork stock isn’t the one and only recipe, it just intends to serve as a guideline how to prepare this wonderful soup. You can change or increase the list of ingredients, you just have to pay attention to some simple rules:

• You can’t cook a good stock from boneless meat, bone is the component that gives flavour and nutrient value to the soup.
• Skimming off the scum is an essential step to get a limpid broth.
• Stock needs time, you can’t hasten it; simmering is the only acceptable way to cook it in order to be able to extract collagen and minerals from the bone and meat.
• As regards the vegetables, it depends on your taste what kind of veggies you add to the soup, but carrot, parsley root and celeriac can’t be omitted. Vegetables have to be cut in bigger pieces because they spend a lot of time in the soup, if you chop them finely, they’ll be overcooked and mushy by the time your soup is ready.
• The phrase “Less is more” is doubly true in connection with broth’s seasoning. Stock doesn’t require too many spices, the meat’s savor has to be dominant, salt and some black pepper corns, possibly even nutmeg are more than enough to make a delicious soup.