Żurek is a very popular soup in Poland, which is made with a stock of meat (ribs, smoked meat), vegetables and sour rye soup leaven. The leaven should be prepared with rye flour a few days before cooking the soup, because its base, i.e. rye flour and water, must ferment for some time. You can find the recipe for homemade sour rye soup leaven HERE.
During the Easter season, most Poles make sour rye soup with smoked meat, and during the Christmas season dried mushrooms are also added to it. If you like a heavier, fairly greasy sour rye soup, cook it using a few types of smoked meat. Both the bacon and smoked sausage will be perfect for such a soup. You can acquire a slightly more delicate flavour of the soup if you make it with smoked ham instead. Below, I leave for you the recipe for żurek i.e. Polish sour rye soup.
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Ingredients for Easter sour rye soup.
- 1 teaspoon of dry marjoram
- 1,5 l vegetable broth or water
- 500 g smoked ham
- 1 flat teaspoon of salt
- 1 big clove of garlic
- 1/2 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper
- 2 bay leaves
- 2 allspice berries
- 100 ml sour cream
- 400 ml white borscht leaven
How to make Easter sour rye soup.
Put the ham into a cooking pot, add vegetable broth, bay leaves, mashed garlic and allspice. Bring it to a boil and from the moment it starts cooking, cook it over a low heat for 30 minutes. Next, take out the ham and put it on a plate. Mix the sour cream with about 1/2 cup of the hot broth from the pot. Next, pour in into the pot along with the leaven, pepper, marjoram and salt. Bring the soup to the a boil, then simmer it over a low heat for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve the finished Easter sour rye soup with a hard-boiled egg and sliced ham, seasoned with freshly grated horseradish.
Good to know when making sour rye soup.
Easter sour rye soup is most often cooked on a stock from smoked meat or white sausage. You can buy bacon, ham and sausage that are smoked and all are good for this soup. I like to make white borscht soup with vegetable broth because it gives it a more intense flavour to it. If you do not have a ready-made vegetable stock at home, add a few fresh vegetables to the soup. I recommend using celery, parsnip, carrot and leek. And for those who want to make homemade vegetable broth, the recipe is HERE.
Some people add cream soup, and some do not add any cream at all. I always season my sour rye soup with sour cream, because for me, this soup must have a sour flavour. Sour cream sometimes tends to split when added to boiling water. To prevent the cream from splitting, it is good practice to combine it with some boiling broth from the pot in a cup and then pour it into the soup. After pouring the cream to the soup, it is worth mixing the soup with a hand whisk.
Are you looking for Easter dishes? If so, try our recipe for Chocolate kouglof.
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