This cucumber soup recipe is for a traditional Polish soup called zupa ogórkowa. Its main ingredients are pickled cucumbers and potatoes with some variations adding carrots, leeks, and dill. Some include cooking the vegetables with meat, such as pork ribs or chicken, before creating the soup. Like many Eastern European soups, it is thickened and enriched with sour cream at the end of the cooking process. Polish immigrants likely introduced recipes like this one for cucumber soup to America, and today it is still enjoyed in Polish American households and restaurants across the country.
Recipe Servings: 6
Prep Time
10 minutes
Cook Time
50 minutes
Total Time
1 hour
Vegetarian
Vegan
Gluten Free
Dairy Free
Kosher
Halal
Ingredients
- 1 qt chicken stock
- 5 potatoes, peeled, and chopped
- ¼ cup (½ stick) butter
- 4 dill pickles, peeled and grated (use pickles fermented in salt brine opposed to vinegar)
- 1 onion, chopped
- 2 carrots, chopped
- ½ tsp salt
- salt, to taste
- Ground black pepper, to taste
- 1 garlic clove, chopped
- 1 bay leaf
- ½ cup pickle juice
- 1 pt sour cream
- 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
Directions
- Bring stock to a boil. Add the potatoes and simmer until tender.
- Separately, melt the butter. Add pickles and raw vegetables; sauté until onion is translucent.
- Add sautéed vegetables to the stock along with bay leaf, salt, pepper, and half the pickle juice.
- Correct the seasoning, adding more pickle juice if needed to create a tart flavor.
- Combine sour cream and flour, whisking to ensure that there are no lumps.
- Gradually add a ladleful of hot broth to the sour cream mixture, whisking all the while.
- Slowly pour sour cream into soup, stirring constantly.
- Cook over very low heat until heated through and just thickened. Do not allow the soup to boil once sour cream has been added.
- Serve hot.
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