Cold cucumber soup on kefir: green, ice-cold, nothing cooked
The other Polish chłodnik, the one without beetroot: grated cucumbers drained of their water, cold kefir with sour cream, two bunches of dill and garlic crushed to a paste with salt. Nothing is cooked but the eggs. A cucumber is 96 % water, so it has to be salted and squeezed first — otherwise an hour later the bowl holds greenish lemonade.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Grating the cucumber 10 min
- Cucumber draining 30 min
- Kefir and herbs 10 min
- Chilling 120 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Grate the cucumbers
Peel the cucumbers and grate them on the coarse side into a bowl; if the seeds are large and hard, scoop them out with a teaspoon first. A coarse grate leaves pieces you can feel on the spoon; a fine one would turn the soup into a smooth purée.
Ingredients: 800 g cucumbers · 1 tsp salt
Coarse holes, peeled, hard seeds removed
Salt and drain
Mix the grated cucumber with a teaspoon of salt, tip into a sieve set over a bowl and leave 30 minutes. About a cupful of liquid collects underneath. Press the pulp with your hand or the back of a spoon, but not bone dry: it should stay moist.
TipSalt draws the water out by osmosis. Without this step the cucumbers release it into the soup instead, and within an hour the kefir is watery, pale and bland. Don't throw the drained liquid away straight off: if the soup turns out too thick, you pour it back.
Half an hour in a sieve, a cup of liquid below
Chop the herbs and crush the garlic
Chop the dill and chives very finely, including the thin dill stalks. Chop the garlic, sprinkle with a pinch of salt and crush it to a smooth paste with the flat of the knife. Meanwhile boil the eggs: 9 minutes from the boil, then cold water.
Ingredients: 750 ml kefir · 200 g sour cream, 18 % · 2 bunches dill · 1 bunch chives · 2 cloves garlic · ½ pcs lemon, juice · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp white pepper
TipGarlic crushed with salt disperses evenly through the soup; pushed through a press it leaves little lumps, and one of them lands on somebody's spoon and burns.
Two bunches of dill, garlic crushed with salt
Combine with the kefir
Whisk the kefir and sour cream smooth in a large bowl. Add the drained cucumber, dill, chives, garlic, lemon juice, salt and white pepper. Stir and taste: right now it should taste slightly too strong.
TipCold mutes flavour. A soup seasoned perfectly at room temperature tastes flat after two hours in the fridge, which is why chłodnik is salted twice: once now, once just before serving.
Kefir, sour cream, cucumber, all the herbs
Chill until ice-cold
Cover and refrigerate 2 hours, ideally overnight. The soup should be properly cold, not merely cool: 4–6 °C. In a heatwave drop an ice cube into each bowl just before serving.
Two hours in the fridge, minimum
Season again and serve
Before serving taste once more and add salt or lemon. Put half an egg in each bowl, ladle the soup over, scatter with radish slices and dill. With rye bread. Keeps 2 days in the fridge; the cucumbers release a little water, just stir it back in.
Ingredients: 3 pcs eggs · 1 bunch radishes · 6 pcs rye bread
Egg, radish, dill, bread alongside
Before you start
With brined pickles
Two brined pickled cucumbers grated in with the fresh ones and half a cup of their brine instead of the lemon: a sharper version that needs no extra salt.
On yogurt
Instead of kefir, 500 g natural yogurt loosened with 250 ml cold water. Thicker and milder, closer to a drinkable tzatziki.
The soup came out watery
The cucumbers were under-salted or drained too briefly. The rescue: 3 tablespoons of thick Greek yogurt, or another handful of grated and squeezed cucumber, and half an hour in the fridge.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
