Chłodnik: Polish cold beet soup on kefir with cucumber and egg
The pink soup for a heatwave: young beetroot with its leaves cooked briefly with lemon juice, cold kefir, cucumber, radish, dill and chives, and half a hard-boiled egg on top. The beetroot cooks for only ten minutes; the fridge does the rest. Chłodnik is served with hot potatoes with butter and dill: cold with hot is how it is best.
Your own work in that: 25 min.
- Beet greens 15 min
- Cooling 20 min
- Kefir and vegetables 10 min
- Chilling 120 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Prepare the beet greens
Wash the beetroot bunches thoroughly; the leaves and stems hide sand. Peel the small beetroots and grate coarsely, slice the stems thinly, cut the leaves into strips. Discard wilted or yellowed leaves.
Ingredients: 2 bunches young beetroot with leaves (botwina) · 300 ml water · 1 pcs lemon, juice · 1 tsp sugar · 1 tsp salt
Beetroots grated, stems and leaves cut
Boil briefly with lemon
Cover the beetroot and stems with the water, add half the lemon juice, the sugar and salt, bring to the boil and cook 7 minutes. Add the leaves and cook another 3 minutes. Take off the heat, cool 20 minutes, then refrigerate.
TipLemon from the start of cooking fixes the colour: without acid the beet greens turn brown and the soup comes out grey instead of pink. The short cooking keeps the vegetables firm.
Ten minutes with lemon, the colour holds
Cut the vegetables
Peel the cucumber and dice finely, slice the radishes thinly or grate them, chop the dill and chives finely. Crush the garlic. Put the eggs on: boil 9 minutes from the boil, cool in cold water, peel.
Ingredients: 1000 ml kefir · 150 g sour cream, 18 % · 1 pcs cucumber · 1 bunch radishes · 1 bunch dill · 1 bunch chives · 1 clove garlic · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
Cucumber diced, radish sliced, lots of herbs
Combine with the kefir
Pour the cold kefir and sour cream into a large bowl and whisk smooth. Add the cooled beet greens with their liquid, the cucumber, radish, dill, chives and garlic. Season with salt, pepper and the rest of the lemon juice. Taste: it should be distinctly sour and salty, since cold mutes flavour.
Kefir, sour cream, beet greens: pink
Chill
Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours, ideally overnight. Chłodnik should be truly cold; in summer an ice cube in the bowl is allowed.
TipWarm beet greens poured into kefir curdle it into lumps. That is why they cool first and only then meet the dairy.
Two hours, better a night
Serve with egg and hot potatoes
Boil the potatoes in salted water 20 minutes, drain, add the butter and a handful of dill. Ladle the soup into bowls, top with egg halves and dill. Serve the potatoes separately, hot. The soup keeps 2 days in the fridge.
Ingredients: 6 pcs eggs · 800 g potatoes · 30 g butter
Cold soup, hot potatoes, egg on top
Before you start
Without beet greens
Out of season: 2 cooked beetroots grated coarsely plus lemon juice. Darker and sweeter, no leaves, but still pink.
On buttermilk or yogurt
Buttermilk instead of kefir gives a lighter version, natural yogurt with a little water a thicker one. Always cold and always with lemon.
With crayfish or veal
Old recipes served chłodnik with crayfish tails or pieces of roast veal. Today: a few prawns or a strip of roast chicken on top.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
