White Borsch

One of the most appreciated soups in Polish tradition is white borsch. Usually served at Easter, it has its “brother” – “red borsch” served at Christmas. Let’s focus on the white one now. To make proper white borsch, you would need a base. However, the recipe can be used without it. It’s up to you whether you want to include the base to your soup or not. If so, you need 3-4 extra days.

White borsch base:

300 grams of “żytnia” flour (rye flour; available in Polish shops)
Crust from 1 slice of “żytni” bread (rye bread; available in Polish shops)
500 mils of warm (boiled) water
3-4 garlic cloves

Preparation:

Sieve flour into a clay pot (or any other), pour water and add bread crust and garlic. Cover it all well and leave for 3-4 days in warm place.

As I said, white borsch can be made without this base. If you decide to spend 3-4 more days making it, use the base instead of water and follow the recipe.

Ingredients:

Smoked bacon (NOT sliced, whole piece available in Polish shops), about 0,5 kilo
Raw white sausage (suggested the one from a Polish shop, as they are not flavoured; if raw sausages are not available, pre-boiled can be used) 0,5 kilo
2-3 carrots (peeled and cut in halves – across)
2-3 bay leaves
6 table spoons of sour cream (12 percent)
3-4 medium size onions
3-4 tablespoons of marjoram
Salt
Pepper

Preparation

Place bacon and sausages in a pan with water (or base) and bring it to boil. Reduce the heat and simmer. Add carrots and onions chopped in rings. Add salt, pepper and bay leaves. Simmer all for about half an hour. Make sure, that the mixture does not evaporate. Keep adding water if needed.

Remove sausages and bacon. Add marjoram and stir well. Add sour cream gently stirring constantly.

Serve hot with eggs boiled and cut in quarters and sausage and bacon chopped in pieces. I would strongly recommend to ad 1 table spoon of horseradish sauce to each plate. It sharpens the taste of the soup.

If you don’t want to serve the soup with (boiled and chopped) sausages and (boiled and chopped) bacon, you can fry them later whole or in chunks and serve with potatoes sprinkled with chopped, fried onions as a separate meal.