Beetroot Soup is another traditional Polish dish. This soup is served in most Polish houses on Christmas Eve dinner (December 24th) after the first star can be seen on the sky... My version of beetroot soup has to be started about 5 days before serving. In traditional version you have to prepare your own leaven (starter dough). Just give it a try and you will love beetroot soup.
Prep Time: 30 minutes
Wait Time: 5 days
Cook Time: 130 minutes
Ingredients:
- 1.5 kg fresh beetroots for main soup
- 3 kg beetroots for leaven
- 4-5 cloves of garlic - sliced
- skin of brown loaf
- 4 big onions
- 40 g dried mushrooms
- 100 g dried plums
- 250 ml dry red wine
- juice of 1 lemon
- 1Tbsp sugar
- 3 Tbsp marjoram
- 10 pimentos
- 7 bay leaf
- 2 Tbsp salt
- sea salt & freshly ground black pepper to season
- fresh parsley to decorate
Method:
1. You need to start preparing your beetroot soup about 5 days before serving. First we need to prepare beetroot leaven and leave it aside for 5 days.
2. To prepare beetroot leaven you need to add 2 Tbsp of salt into 1 liter of warm water in large glass bowl. Remove the skin from 3 kg of fresh beetroots and cut them into slices. Pour salty water into beetroot slices, add garlic, brown loaf skin and 2 sliced onions. Water should cover the beetroots. Cover the glass bowl with kitchen towel and leave aside for 5 days in a warm place.
3. After 5 days, filter the juice from beetroots.
4. Pour hot water into the mashrooms and leave for 10 minutes.
5. Wash under hot water 1 kg of beetroots and boil for 40 minutes in hot water with some salt.
6. Cut 2 onions into quarters and put into a large pot of 2 liters of water. Add dried plums. Add mushrooms together with their juice. Mix well and cook approx. 1 hour.
7. Now ready beetroots cut into small pieces and add into onion, plums and mushrooms soup. Add beetroot leaven, bay leaf, pimientos, marjoram, sugar, lemon juice, ground black pepper and salt. Cook for approx. 30 minutes on low-medium heat.
8. When your soup finally has nice dark red color, add red wine and we are ready to filter the soup. Separate the vegetables from the bullion, add some pepper and salt for a better taste and your soup is ready to serve.
9. You can decorate with fresh parsley.
In Poland this soup can be also served with 'uszka'. These are small dumplings with a shape of an ear (thus the name) stuffed with sauerkraut and mashrooms. I love to serve it also with special little pies stuffed with sauerkraut and mushrooms. I will tell you how to prepare those at home - they are simply Delicious.
ENJOY!!!
