Mar 17, 2012
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Bialy Barszcz (Polish White Borscht)

The recipe for this Polish Easter soup calls for fresh horseradish, but it works just as well with the prepared version. This recipe first appeared in our April 2012 issue along with Melissa Pasanen's story Easter Comfort.
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Bialy Barszcz (Polish White Borscht) Enlarge Image Credit: Todd Coleman
SERVES 4–6

INGREDIENTS

2 lb. smoked kielbasa
2 tbsp. unsalted butter
4 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 leeks, trimmed, sliced
1 small yellow onion, sliced
2 medium russet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1″ cubes
2 sprigs marjoram
1 bay leaf
1 ½ cups sour cream
¼ cup flour
¼ cup freshly grated horseradish
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
¼ cup roughly chopped dill
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
4 boiled eggs, cut into wedges

INSTRUCTIONS

Boil kielbasa and 8 cups water in a 6-qt. saucepan. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook to flavor broth, about 25 minutes. Pour liquid and kielbasa into a bowl; reserve. Return saucepan to medium heat. Add butter, garlic, leeks, and onion; cook until soft, about 10 minutes. Add reserved liquid, potatoes, marjoram, and bay leaf; boil. Reduce heat to medium-low; cook until potatoes are tender, about 30 minutes. Discard marjoram and bay leaf; purée soup in a blender. Return soup to pot; bring to a simmer. Meanwhile, whisk sour cream and flour in a bowl, add ½ cup soup, and whisk until smooth. Pour mixture into soup; cook, stirring, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Cut kielbasa into ½″-thick slices; add to soup along with horseradish, salt, and pepper. Garnish with dill, parsley, and eggs.

Bialy Barszcz (Polish White Borscht)

This article was first published in Saveur in Issue #146

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Ratings & Reviews (8)

Your recipe lacks one ingredient to make it real white borscht ("biały barszcz"/"żurek") - it needs to be sour. In Poland we usually use pre-made "zakwas" which you can buy bottled in most of stores. I guess this also could be obtained in polish stores in your area.

But if you can't buy it bottled you can make your own.

To make "zakwas" you'll need:

- 2 cups flour (wheat or rye)
- two slices of "razowy" bread (brown bread should do it)
- 5 cloves of garlic
- 1 liter of boiled water (warm)

Put the flour, slightly crushed garlic cloves, bread torn in pieces in a jar that is big enough to hold all the ingredients. Cover the jar with cloth and leave it in warm place for 3-4 days. Once it is ready strain it through thick strainer (to remove bread and garlic). Then cook the white borscht like in your recipe but mix the "zakwas" 1/1 with "kiełbasa" cooking liquid.

White borsch or "żur" is polish traditional dish for Easter and as such it is made for Lent without "kiełbasa". If you need the Lent version just use water sans boiled "kiełbasa". Non-Lent version usually is cooked with "kiełbasa", loads of addons such as boiled potatoes, side bread, egg and so on... You can also cook it on smoked ribs instead of "kiełbasa".

Enjoy! :)
On the "zakwas" - I forgot to mention you need to pour warm boiled water to the jar.
I make mine by using a fermented yeast rye, garlic and oatmeal base. It takes about a week to ferment and then this is strained. Water are added to this base to thin and vinegar to taste. The rest is pretty much correct as each family has their own favorites. We use beet horseradish in ours.
KOSMOSIC is correct. The soup needs to be made sour, however, white borscht and zurek are different in this respect.

I would give the recipe 4 stars if the sour element was added.

A zurek is made from rye flour as a base and is traditionally not served with mashed potato but with white sausage, and often in a hollowed out loaf of bread instead of a bowl. The sour flavour comes from the fermentation of rye flour and bread crusts. Zurek is traditionally eaten during Easter.

A white borscht is made from wheat flour, traditionally served with mashed potato and crispy bacon bits, fried onions and dill to garnish. The sour flavour in this soup is from the wheat flour (though this is mainly a thickning agent) and the juice of saurkraut.

If you do not want to make your own sour mix you can get it pre-made in bottles, or as a powder/sachet which has a longer shelf life.

My last piece of advise is to make it with ribs instead of sausage. Serve the ribs on a side plate along with the soup. Delicious!!!!
noAvatar
I would say, that adding vinegar or lemon juice to flavor barszcz or zurek is a profane. It is like calling a donut-paczek, which is not.
Making zurek is easy but requires ahead preparation, the above recipe for fermenting flour with garlic for flavor is correct , room temperature of 65-75 F is preferred to develop lactic and acetic flavor. Leave some of zakwas-zur for further inoculations of zurek, in a fridge. The process will take less time.
Never having eaten real Polish food, I made this because it had a lot of things I like (kielbasa, eggs, dill, horseradish, soup). I followed the recipe pretty closely, and it tasted bland, but after adding a bit of apple cider vinegar (noted by another reviewer as "profane"), it really tasted much better. Added a bit of Polish Maggi (probably also sacrilegious) and some smoked black pepper and let it simmer an extra hour or so. By the time it hit the table it was incredibly delicious.
noAvatar
As the accompanying article explains, this is from the Polish community in Vermont, where zur is now replaced (often) with sour cream, or citrus, etc.

This was fine, but yes, rather bland.
Our recipe from Manayunk is much simpler:
apple cider vinegar and 1/2 and 1/2 cream is used.
For Christmas we use mushrooms and for Easter we use Kielbasa.
Bialy Barszcz (Polish White Borscht) 3 5 6 8

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