Iryna and Joanne partnered up to demonstrate at the Caring Place Community Kitchen. Iryna is from Ukraine. She demonstrated a very popular Ukrainian dish which originated from Russia. It is a cold soup dish called Okroshka. Iryna told us that she had been making this cold soup all her life. She served the Okroshka with toasted bread and a dollop of sour cream.

Okroshka is a summer dish. It is a very refreshing soup. It is made with fresh diced vegetables. The fresh vegetables retain the vitamins due to no cooking is involved. Heat is the main culprit to destroy vitamins. The only vegetables that need cooking is potatoes. Of course, there is meat in this dish which needs cooking. You can add poached chicken, fish, ham or sausages to this dish.

Okroshka is usually made with cucumbers, carrot, a garden radish, parsley, baby dill, green onion, eggs, lemon juice, butter milk or sour cream or mayonnaise.  If you like to add meat, it has to be cooked and chilled. The ratio of meat and vegetables should be approximately half and half.

Iryna, thank you for sharing your favourite soup with us.

Iryna shared with us something about her country, Ukraine. Ukraine is used to be part of Russia. It’s an European country. It is the biggest country in Europe after Russia. It claimed it’s independence in 1921.

Ukraine’s population is about 50 million. Ukrainian also speaks Russian and it’s language is similar to Hungarian and Poland.

Ukrainian’s winter is very harsh, between -20 to -35 Celsius and the summer can be pretty hot, as high as 40 Celsius.

Ukraine has no mountain except the border with Poland and Hungarian. Iryna is from the south of Ukraine which borders the Black Sea.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds chicken breast or sausages
• 2 cucumbers, dice
• 2 radishes, dice
• 4 boiled potatoes
• 6 hard boiled eggs
• 1 bunch of green onions
• 1 small carrot, boiled, dice
• 1 bunch baby dill, chopped
• 1 small tub of sour cream
• 1 litre of butter milk or 1 small jar of mayonnaise
• lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
• salt to taste

Iryna did not use the butter milk but she used the mayonnaise instead.  She brought the butter milk to show us the option.

Radish is a root vegetable. It is related to mustard and turnip. Radishes are rich in ascorbic acid, i.e. Vitamin C, folic acid and potassium. They are a good source of Vitamin B6, riboflavin, magnesium, copper and calcium.  Radishes can be eaten raw and is often used in salad.

The flavour of Okroshka is predominated by dill. Dill has fernlike leaves that are aromatic and used to flavour many food such as salmon, borscht, okroshka and pickles. Fresh dill loses it’s flavour rapidly if dried, however, freeze-dried dill leaves preserve their flavour relatively well for a few months.

Source: Iryna

Instructions

Boil the chicken breast. Drain and chill the chicken. Reserve the chicken stock and chill. Dice the cooled chicken breasts.

Peel the hard boiled eggs. Remove the egg yolk and dice the egg white.

Combine the egg yolk with some mayonnaise to make a paste.

Chopped the green onions green part only. Sprinkle with some salt and mash with a fork to remove the sharpness from the green onions.

Combine all the chopped vegetables. Toss the vegetables to mix well.

Blend in the mayonnaise egg yolk mixture.

Add the chopped chicken and toss. Add more mayonnaise or buttermilk to taste.

Add the cooled chicken broth. Add more cold water if needed as it has to be soupy.

Squeeze the juice from 1/2 lemon to the soup. Refrigerate the soup for at least 20 minutes before serving. Okroshka can be kept in the refrigerator to up to 3 days.

Iryna toasted some bread and flavour the bread by rubbing a garlic clove over them. The toasted bread is to be served with the cold soup.