Polish White Baarszcz
Savory, hearty, filling. With rye starter, polish sausage, potato, and eggs.
Ingredients
White Barszcz Sourdough Starter Ingredients
- 5 tsp rye flour
- 5 cloves garlic
- 4 bay leaves
- 3 allspice berries whole
- 650 ml water cold, DI or filtered
- 1 tsp sourdough starter optional
Soup Ingredients
- 3 Tbsp butter
- ¾ small yellow onion diced
- 300 g polish sausage (approximately 4 hotdog sized links) sliced thin
- 2 russet potatoes peeled and chopped
- 2 allspice berries whole
- 1 bay leaf
- 1 Tbsp Vegeta seasoning
- salt, pepper, marjoram to taste
- 4 eggs hard boiled and sliced into quarters
- ¾ cup sour cream
- 6 cups water
Instructions
Preparing the soup starter
- Add all starter ingredients to a clean mason jar. Cover loosely.
- Stir once a day, for 5 days. Adding a tsp of already going sourdough starter will kickstart the fermentation process.
- You will know that the starter is ready by smell. It should smell like pickles.
Making the soup
- In a large soup pot melt the butter. Fry the onions in the butter until golden brown.
- Add the 6 cups of water, potatoes, sausage, allspice, bay leaves, vegeta, salt, pepper, and marjoram. You may wish to place the allspice and bay leaves in a sachet (see notes)
- Bring the liquid to a gentle boil and cook uncovered until the potatoes are done.
- Remove the allspice and bay leaves from the soup. Stir the fermented soup starter and strain it into the soup pot, removing the garlic, bay leaves, and allspice.
- Whisk in the sour cream. After whisking, add the hard boiled eggs and stir gently.
- Heat on a gentle bubbling simmer until the soup has thickened. This can take between 1 and 2 hours. The flavors will become more potent as you cook and you should expect the soup to reduce at least 1 to 2 inches depending on your pot.
- Serve with sourdough bread (recommended).
Notes
- It is not pleasant to be enjoying the soup and accidentally chomp on an allspice berry. You can add the allspice berries and bay leaf to a sachet that can easily be removed later.