Cold Soups - Recipes for Summer

Tired of constant heat we dream about something really light to eat. Cold soups create separate page in many national cookery books. There is a huge variety of them. Literally every tasty and ripe vegetable or fruit might become the basis of such a dish.

In Southern Europe cold soup with melon, sparkling wine and cayenne pepper is eaten. The English appreciate strawberry cold soup, with green pepper and a drop of whisky. Spain is the fatherland of classic gazpacho, the Balkans have tara-tora: cold soup with yoghurt, cucumber and plenty of garlic. In Poland we have Lithuanian cold soup. I am not even bothering to try to explain the origin of the name, but the soup is so popular and so typically Polish, one may find its recipe in every cookery book.

Here are some tasty recipes for some Polish cold soups:

1. Lithuanian cold soup

Ingredients:

1 l of sour milk
250 ml of sour cream
0,3 – 0,4 kg of young beet greens
0,1 kg of crayfish meat
Dill
Chives
Hard boiled egg
0,1 kg of veal roast or roasted chicken
0,1 kg of cucumber
0,05 kg of radish
Salt
Pepper
Beet leavening for taste

Preparation Method:

Rinse and dry young beet green, chop and cook in water with beet leavening. Rinse and slice your radish, rinse and chop your cucumber. Pour sour milk and sour cream together and give it a whisk, add cooled young beet green liquid, radish, cucumber, crayfish, sliced egg, chopped dill and chives, diced meat, ad salt and pepper to taste and leave to cool for a couple of hours.

2. Mazovian cold soup

Ingredients:

Leaves of 2-3 beetroots
0,15 – 0,2 of veal
1 cup of sour cream
1 cup of dill pickles liquid
1 dill pickle
2-3 eggs
Dill
Chives
Salt
Pepper
1 tablespoon of vinegar

Preparation Method:

Take equal parts of sour cream and dill pickle liquid and mix it thoroughly. Cook beetroot leaves in water with vinegar, chop it and add to sour cream and then stir. Cook the eggs, cut into quarters, chop veal and pour all the ingredients to your soup. Add salt and pepper. At the end chop dill and chives and pour into soup. Place your dish in a fridge until it is ready to be served.

3. Mazurian cold soup.

Ingredients:

0,25 l of broth
Rye leavening
Leaves from 2-3 beetroots
0,5 l of sour cream
3 eggs
2 dill pickles
Dill

Preparation Method:

Prepare rich broth, either from beef or veal meat. Strain, add rye leavening to taste. In a separate pan cook beetroot leaves with dill, chop it thoroughly and put into a soup tureen. Pour 0,5 l of sour cream and stir. Then pour in 1 cup of your broth constantly stirring. Add eggs, boiled and sliced into quarters, and chopped dill pickles to hot soup. Place your tureen on ice. Instead of rye leavening you might use dill pickles liquid, which I to be cooked with broth for w while. Serve cool.

All cold soups taste delicious with typical Polish rye bread.

Smacznego!

Is looks funny - to see the recipes for Polish food, the first one being Lithuanian.

Maybe it's worth mentioning that Lithuania was once united with Poland and many customs are similar, if not the same.

The heat wave is gone but maybe I'll try the soups anyway. Thanks.