This
is my go-to cold summer soup—tangy, tasty, healthy, crunchy, and delicious. I
made it last weekend and have been eating it all week. I may have posted this
last summer ((last time I made it). If so, bear with me. I posted a picture on
the NYT Cooking Community page and got over seventy-five reactions and a few
comments, so I thought it worth sharing again.
Okroshka
is Russian, originally made with kefir, a fermented milk drink. You can make it
with any combination of buttermilk, nonfat yogurt, or sour cream. Basically, it’s
diced meat and vegetables in a broth of buttermilk or whatever combination you
choose. There are many recipes online, some with ingredients that I can’t quite
imagine. I’ve seen suggestions of sugar, mustard, hot dogs, bologna. More reasonable
suggestions, to me, might be ham and green peas.
Most
recipes call for diluting the dairy with water. Some says two parts dairy to
one part water; others call for equal parts. I followed the recipe, used equal
parts water and buttermilk, and thought the broth was too thin. So I recommend
2:1. I chose to stick with buttermilk, just because I really like it. I think
yogurt would be good too, but I am not so sure about sour cream. I think you
need the tanginess of buttermilk or yogurt.
Here’s
the version I made:
Okroshka
2 small Yukon gold potatoes,
cooked, cooled, peeled, and diced
4 hard-boiled eggs, diced
6-8 small radishes, sliced
(the bigger the radish, the tougher it will be)
2-3 cups diced meat – chicken or
ham
1 bunch fresh dill, minced
4 green onions, chopped
2 quarts buttermilk
1 quart water
3 lemons
½ tsp. salt
Dice
and chop vegetables and meat and put in a large bowl--really large because this
makes a whole lot. In a separate large container, mix dairy, water, lemon
juice, and salt. Pour the dairy mixture over the meat and vegetables, and stir
to mix.
Chill
thoroughly to serve. Add more salt if needed.
This
makes a satisfying one-dish meal—for several meals. You could halve it if you
want.
No comments:
Post a Comment