Borscht - Zurek / Bialy barszcz recipe

My mother is Polish and makes a soup that she pronounces as "baush". I have no idea if the name sounds like that or how it is spelled. When I've asked other Polish people if they've heard of it, only 1 has said yes. This is what it consists of and how it's made.

Boil fresh Polish sausage in a big pot of water. Hard boil some eggs. When the sausage is cooked, add some vinegar and a small amount of corn starch to the broth. Chop up the sausage, eggs and some rye bread. Ladle broth over all of the ingrdients. Add more vinegar to taste.

Does this sound familiar to anyone? If so, can someone spell it for me and give me a pronounciation? Thanks :)

are you by any chance thinking of barszcz?

That isn't a recipe for barszcz, is it?

nope, the recipe is different but "baush" sounds like barszcz :)

Yes, this is similair to "żurek" and it's called: "Biały Barszcz" which means white.

Zur Soup
The soured juice (white borsch) for the zur should be prepared earlier. It is made the following way:
Scald 2 cups of whole-wheat flour with boiling water, pouring it enough to get a thin dough. When it cools, add 1 ¾ pints lukewarm water and place a piece of whole wheat bread crust in it. Pour into a glass jar, tie with gauze and leave in warm place for three days.

Cook 1 ¾ pints of vegetable stock with dried mushrooms and add ¾ pint white borsch to the hot stock. Do not strain, as the soup should be slightly thick. If the zur is not sour enough, add some more white borsch. Add a crushed garlic clove along with 4 potatoes cut into cubes. When the potatoes are ready, salt to taste.

i very happy. i soon go poland september. all is final :). i eat soup :)

Interesting. Barszcz that is fermented to get the sour taste.

Yes, that's exactly how it's done. Fermented soup.

I wonder if many people make it this way or just use vinegar or lemon juice to sour it"

I know people that do their own "zakwas", and it’s always the best that way, but most seem to take the easier path(me included). :)

It's still done this way in Poland. It has this fermented taste when it sits for days. Like when they make beer, it sits till it gets fermented.

And bread makes good fermented soup.
I was never a big fan of it....:)

Hi, We call it Zood.Only difference- we add sour cream to bowl.

JenCooper -
My mom and grandma made the same soup and now I make it too every Easter with my sausage water. But I also boil my slab bacon in the same water and it adds lots more flavor. My Polish family called it the same thing. Pronounced as "baush" Never really new how the Polish spelling was. I add heavy cream instead of cornstarch, and I also add a touch of garlic. I use the vinegar to taste. My daughter LOVES it, my boys "like" it but my hubby calls it grease soup! LOL

Thanks to you for asking the question. I was wondering if anyone else has this tradition too. I live in Western NY and it's very traditional here.

Tammy - FerrisMomof3

I've just got back from Chicago with some good sausage and white cheese (farmers cheese? the polish one), cooked some white barszcz, added eggs and cheese: this is my favourite soup, delicious.

My family has the same kind of soup every Easter. I don't know the exact recipe but I do know that you take kielbasa, ham, and eggs (and some other stuff I can't remember) and then it has to sit overnight. I'm not the one who makes it, I just peel the eggs. :) It's topped with farmer's cheese, horseradish, and/or extra sliced eggs. My family's always just called it Easter soup. It's served along with Easter bread - I don't know the Polish name of the bread but it is basically eggs, sugar, water, potato water, crushed anise probably a couple of things I'm forgetting because I'm too lazy to go and get the recipe box.

FerrisMomof3: Do you by any chance go to the Broadway market? We go there to get Easter stuff and they have the best pierogi and kielbasa.

FerrisMom and Tigerseye,

Thanks for the input. I live in Buffalo, so I'm obviously also a WNYer. Maybe th soup has some sort of regional root as well. The Broadway markt is great and I plan on going this week amidst the Easter craziness :)

The Polish Easter soup is Borscht, and pronounced just as it is written. It seems there are many ways to make it. My family is from Niagara Falls, NY. We always make it from the Polish sausage stock cooked with onions, add fresh dill, white vinegar, horseradish, and half and half. When we serve it, it is with sliced sausage and hard boiled eggs... and don't forget the seeded rye bread. Can't wait to make it this year. Best of luck and Happy Easter. Paula E.

There is red Barszcz, cooked with beets and there is white barszcz, also called zurek. Seems that you are talking about Zurek, rather than red barszcz..

For some people white barszcz is so called Ukrainian barszcz, which is something different than żurek.

Ukrainian barszcz is a red barszcz. It's always been. Ukrainian barszcz has beets and beans, all other kind of veggies; chopped, cut (usually Julianne style).

Zurek is a white barszcz usually made of some regular soup veggies, kielbasa, potatoes, flour and garlic. The basis of Zurek is called ryemeal sour.

Not in my family :)

Merged:Looking for a soup recipe-Ham, sausage and I call it a stinky broth

My grandfather use to make a soup with a boiled ham and some kind of broth, then you cut up the kielbasa,add a boiled easter egg cut up,rye bread, fresh grated horseradish,and some of the ham..Does anyone have the recipe for the soup or even heard of it? He took the broth recipe to his grave with him and I would like to keep the tradition going in our family.

You have what I was looking for, thank you so much that someone else grew up with this also... I am from upstate NY originally and now transplanted to Florida.. The only thing I miss is picking my own fresh horseradish

The Easter Soup recipe handed down from my great-grandmother is this one:

Boil the kielbasa along with several cloves of peeled garlic. Remove the sausage and slice. Dice ham and hard-boiled egg whites, set the yolks aside. Add cider vinegar to the broth to taste.

In each bowl, put one hard-boiled egg yolk and a few tablespoons of broth. Mash the yolk with a fork until it is blended. Then add a dollop of horseradish, egg whites, ham, sausage and fill the bowl with broth.

Simple and delicious!

I use dill pickle juice and lemon juice to make mine bialy barszcz sour, along with the boiled water from ham and sausage, served with hard boiled eggs, and thicken with a mixture of sour cream and flour.

My Polish Mom brought this same recipe to our Easter celebrations. She learned it from her mother and grandmother(first generation Polish). It has always been called Borscht in our family. Just like you said, the stock is made from boiling kielbasa (chilled and defatted) and then add an egg, a few tablespoons of flour, salt, pepper, and vinegar. We make up individual bowls of chopped rye bread, cut up boiled eggs(colored Easter eggs, of course) and horseradish and then pour the hot broth over it. We have a bowl or two for breakfast, the same for lunch and maybe and evening snack. This is something we have never had on another day. The joke is- once a year is plenty.

I been looking and asking around for years if any one of Polish heritage has ever heard of this- but no one! As soon as I say borscht- everyone thinks of the red beet kind. It was so cool to finally hear that it is a Polish dish for other families as well.

The correct spelling is Borscht. My recipe:
Cook 5 links of smoked polish sausage in just enough water to cover sausage. Remove sausage. Keep the broth hot. Mix 2 cups of buttermilk with 1/2 cup flour. Mix real good with a wire whisk until all the lumps are gone. Pour VERY slowly into broth mixing continuously for a few minutes. Add about 6 tablespoons of finely grated fresh horseradish. Lastly, mix one pint of sour cream and two cups of buttermilk real good and pour into soup. DO NOT boil. Just simmer for a few minutes.

We put bowls of cut up ham & sausage and bowls of hard-boiled eggs and bowls of cubed homemade bread on the table. Each person can add as much of these as they wish to each individual bowl of soup.

This soup is best made one day ahead. This soup has been in my family for generations and is served at Easter dinner.

But in Poland it's Barszcz

After returning from experiencing this in Krakow, I tried to synthesize it myself - and very proud of my success I am too!
For our English taste, this was a very strange sensation - kind of cream of chicken soup, but sour and with lumps of Chorizo in it - tell anybody and they go "Yuk! No thanks", so you just have to serve it and see the smiles and "What is this?"

My Recipe: I looked up sour rye dough and found that Kvass is probably the oldest fermented beverage on earth! Good, Eh? I improvised it like this:

Veg stock, two Ryvita biscuits competely crumbed, plain Yoghurt (Sour, see?), chopped chorizo sausage (didn't know what sort to get - but this worked) and PIECE DE RESISTANCE - a bottle of Hoegaarden white beer.(Sour - fermeted with yeast and residue all present!

It was lovely and tasted a very near cousin to that served in Krakow.

I have now bought some ryeflour and am going to make some Kvass to drink and to use in a Barszcs Bialy.
(By the way I spell it "Sour Dough Soup"!)

that's what I call creative cooking - good for you.
Kwas is the essence of Bialy Barszcze and I am not sure why some people put vinegar to make it sour. Kwass is the essance, although I buy mine pre-made in the bottle, since it's good enough for me.

Also Kwas is healthy.

Merged:Delicous Zurek - Help!

Hi, my (non-Polish) girlfriend recently tried Zurek for the first time and absolutely loved it. I decided I might try and make it for her so I looked up a few recipes and it seemed a little bit difficult so I bought a jar of concentrate thinking that my poor Polish skills would be enough to read the instructions. I was wrong and now have a jar of delicious Zurek sitting at home and have no idea what to do with it. Would really appreciate it if someone could translate the following (apologies if this is more appropriate for translation forum).

Zawartosc butelki rozprowadzic w niewielkiej ilosc wody. nastepnie wiac do 3 litrow wywaru. Mieszajac doprowadzic do wrenia.

I'm not sure how to type all the Polish characters so this probably doesn't make any sense at all, but if someone could help me I'd really appreciate it.

Thanks.