White barszcz for Easter: wheat sour starter, white sausage, horseradish and egg
The Easter soup easily confused with żurek, though it is a different thing: the starter is wheat, not rye, so the flavour is milder and milkier; horseradish brings the bite and marjoram the aroma. The white sausage is poached in stock, never in boiling water, so it doesn't burst. Half a hard-boiled egg and a spoon of horseradish go into each bowl.
Your own work in that: 20 min.
- Stock 45 min
- Sausage poaching 25 min
- Starter, horseradish, serving 20 min
Step by step
0 / 6 done
Make a light stock
Cover the bacon, vegetables, charred onion, garlic and spices with water, bring to the boil, skim and simmer 45 minutes. The stock for white barszcz should be light: the starter and horseradish lead here, not the meat.
Ingredients: 150 g smoked bacon · 2000 ml water · 1 pcs carrot · 1 pcs parsley root · 1 pcs celeriac, a piece · 1 pcs onion · 4 cloves garlic · 2 pcs bay leaves · 5 pcs allspice berries · 6 pcs black peppercorns
Bacon and root vegetables, forty-five minutes
Poach the white sausage
Strain the stock. Prick the sausage in a few places and lower it into stock at about 80 °C — barely trembling, never boiling. Poach 25 minutes. Boiling water would split the casing and the fat would leak into the soup.
TipPricking is extra insurance: if the stock does come to the boil, the casing is less likely to split. The sausage is done when it feels firm and springy under a finger and is no longer pink inside when cut.
Eighty degrees, twenty-five minutes
Add the starter
Lift the sausage out and set aside. Shake the starter hard and pour it in gradually, tasting after each cup; usually 400–500 ml goes in. Bring to the boil and cook 5 minutes, no longer: a long boil dulls the fresh, sour aroma of the starter.
Ingredients: 600 g raw white sausage · 500 ml wheat sour starter for white barszcz · 200 g sour cream, 18 % · 3 tbsp grated horseradish · 2 tbsp dried marjoram · 1 tsp salt · ½ tsp black pepper
TipA wheat starter is milder and milkier than a rye one. If you only have rye, use a third less and one more spoon of sour cream.
Shaken, added gradually, to taste
Finish with cream and horseradish
Mix the sour cream with the horseradish, temper with a few spoons of hot soup and pour it into the pot. Heat only until the first signs of a boil and take off the heat: sour cream boiled longer in an acidic soup can curdle, and horseradish loses its heat and leaves only bitterness. Season with salt, pepper and marjoram crushed between your palms.
Horseradish with cream, tempered, just to the boil
Cut the garnish
Slice the sausage 1.5 cm thick, peel and halve the hard-boiled eggs. Classically each bowl gets half an egg and a few slices of sausage.
Ingredients: 3 pcs eggs · ½ bunch dill · 6 pcs bread
Sausage sliced, eggs halved
Serve
Put the sausage and half an egg in each bowl, ladle the hot barszcz over, scatter with dill and more marjoram. Serve with bread. Without the garnish the soup keeps 3 days in the fridge; reheat without boiling.
Sausage, egg, soup from the ladle
Before you start
A wheat starter in three days
6 spoons of plain flour, 500 ml cooled boiled water, 3 garlic cloves and a crust of bread in a jar under muslin, 3 days somewhere warm, stirred once a day. It smells of sour milk and bread.
With potatoes
Diced boiled potatoes in the bottom of the bowl instead of the egg: the everyday version, filling and cheaper.
How it differs from żurek
Żurek is built on a rye starter: darker, sharper, more bready. White barszcz on a wheat one: paler, milder, with horseradish. In many homes the names get mixed up, but classically they are two different soups.
Nutrition
per 100 gStep photos are computer-generated from the recipe.
