As a young teen, Murray Simon worked his way through some of Chicago’s great delis in the early ’50s: Purity, S & L, Randl’s and more. He learned how to make knishes & blintzes and paid attention to what went into the soup pot. The Sweet & Sour Cabbage Soup he created for the Mushroom & Sons restaurant he opened in Highland Park in 1973 was all about those flavor memories. “The goal with every recipe I created for Mushroom & Sons was to make it taste like those deli dishes I had when I was a kid,” says Simon. This recipe, dictated by Simon, makes enough for a crowd.

Makes 4 gallons

Ingredients

• 3 heads white cabbage, coarsely chopped
• 2 1/2 gallons water
• 1 5/8 cups tomato paste
• 1 qt canned tomatoes, or fresh tomato ends, coarsely chopped
• 1 qt onion, chopped
• 1/8 cup of salt
• 1 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
• 1 qt sugar
• 1 cup good quality beef base
• 1/4 cup sweet paprika
• 1/2 cup chopped curly parsley
• 1/8 cup each, garlic and onion powder
• 3/4 plus 1/8 cup lemon juice
• 1/4 cup caraway seeds (put in a knotted piece of cheesecloth if you want the flavor, without the texture in the finished soup)
• 1/3 box cornstarch
• skirt steak (optional add-in)

Instructions