Okroshka
The name comes from the Russian verb kroshit — "to crumble, to chop finely", and that is the whole instruction: everything must be cut into a very fine, even dice, so that one spoonful holds a little of every ingredient. Coarsely cut okroshka is not the same dish — it is a salad drowned in kefir. The second rule is cold: the soup should be cold enough to hurt your teeth.
Your own work in that: 0 min.
- Potatoes and eggs 25 min
- Cooling 20 min
- Dicing 20 min
- Kefir base 5 min
- Chilling 35 min
Step by step
0 / 6 doneBoil the potatoes and eggs, then chill them
Boil the potatoes in their skins until tender (20–25 minutes) and hard-boil the eggs (9 minutes from boiling). Put the eggs in cold water, peel the potatoes and cool them completely — about 20 minutes on the counter; easiest is to cook them the day before and keep them in the fridge. Warm ingredients heat the kefir and the soup never reaches the right temperature — and the cold is half the dish here.
Ingredients: 400 g potatoes · 4 pcs eggs
Dice everything to 5 mm
Cut the potatoes, eggs, cucumbers, radishes and ham into an even dice about 5 mm across. Spend the twenty minutes — the whole pleasure of okroshka is that every spoonful contains everything at once.
Ingredients: 2 pcs cucumbers · 8 pcs radishes · 200 g ham · 4 pcs spring onions · 1 bunch dill
An even 5 mm dice — the most important step.Bruise the spring onion with salt
Chop the spring onions, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and crush them with a pestle or the flat of a knife until they release their juice. Crushed onion gives its flavour to the whole soup; merely chopped it stays in separate, sharp fragments.
Ingredients: 2 pcs cucumbers · 8 pcs radishes · 200 g ham · 4 pcs spring onions · 1 bunch dill
Whisk the kefir base
Whisk the cold kefir with the mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper, then loosen with sparkling water. The sparkling water is not an affectation — it thins the thick kefir and adds a light, refreshing lift.
Ingredients: 1000 ml kefir · 200 ml sparkling water · 1 tsp mustard · ½ pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp pepper
Kefir, mustard, lemon and sparkling water.Combine and refrigerate
Stir the diced ingredients into the base with the chopped dill (keep a handful for scattering) and refrigerate for at least 30 minutes. The soup needs not only to chill but to settle — the onion, cucumber and dill have to move into the kefir.
Ingredients: 1000 ml kefir · 200 ml sparkling water · 1 tsp mustard · ½ pcs lemon · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp pepper
Everything together, then half an hour in the fridge.Serve with ice and more dill
Check the seasoning just before serving — cold dulls flavour, so the chilled soup often needs another pinch of salt or a little more lemon. Drop an ice cube into each bowl and scatter with the reserved dill.
Ingredients: 2 pcs cucumbers · 8 pcs radishes · 200 g ham · 4 pcs spring onions · 1 bunch dill
Before you start
Made with kvass
The original uses bread kvass instead of kefir, which makes it sweet-sour and lighter. Kefir gives a more filling version, popular in Poland; you can also mix the two half and half.
Without meat
The vegetarian version skips the ham and uses six eggs. Add a handful of diced daikon or young turnip then — the soup needs something assertive in place of the cured meat.
Do not make it ahead
Okroshka is best on the day. By the next day the cucumber and radish weep water and the kefir separates — if you must prepare ahead, keep the diced ingredients and the base apart.
