Russian Cold Soup (Okroshka)

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.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-19

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.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-5

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

Ukrainian-Okroshka-1

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

Ukrainian-Okroshka-2

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.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-3

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

Ukrainian-Okroshka-4Boil the chicken breast.

Drain and chill the chicken.

Reserve the chicken stock and chill.

Dice the cooled chicken breasts.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-6Peel the hard boiled eggs. Remove the egg yolk and dice the egg white.
Ukrainian-Okroshka-7Combine the egg yolk with some mayonnaise to make a paste.
Ukrainian-Okroshka-8Chopped the green onions green part only. Sprinkle with some salt and mash with a fork to remove the sharpness from the green onions.
Ukrainian-Okroshka-9Combine all the chopped vegetables.

Toss the vegetables to mix well.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-13Blend in the mayonnaise egg yolk mixture.
Ukrainian-Okroshka-14Add the chopped chicken and toss. Add more mayonnaise or buttermilk to taste.
Ukrainian-Okroshka-15Add the cooled chicken broth.

Add more cold water if needed as it has to be soupy.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-17Squeeze 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.

Ukrainian-Okroshka-11Iryna 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.

This Post Has 4 Comments

  1. Lidia

    I really like your blog and I follow it regularly, on FB too. I guess I could even go as far as calling this blog my favourite food blog. I am from Europe and I am Ukrainian. I’m sorry but I just can’t go without noticing some really atrocious mistakes in this post…:-/ Ukraine was never part of Russia, it was either part of the Russian empire or the USSR. USSR does not equal Russia. It may have claimed its independence, but never received it until 1991. The Hungarian language is NOT similar to ANY european language, be it Ukrainian or Polish or Russian or French or German. Polish and Ukrainian are a tiny bit similar, but Hungarian is a language belonging to a totally different language group (Indo-european) and cannot be compared to any common European language. And even more, Ukraine DOES have big mountains – the Carpathian mountains, bordering with Slovakia and Romania! They are the biggest mountain range in Europe after after the Alps – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carpathian_Mountains
    Sorry, but I just couldn’t go without noticing :-/

    1. Suanne

      Hi Lidia: I was just sharing what I learned from Iryna. Maybe I heard some of what was mentioned wrongly but thanks for clarifying. Ukraine and eastern Europe is something that I do not know of a lot. I like learning about different cultures and all. I am sorry if some of what I wrote is incorrect.

  2. Lidia

    Suanne, one of the things that I like about your blog is the fact that you never hide comments and always sicerely reply. I fully understand that eastern Europe remains its “mistery” status to most people 🙂

  3. Anu

    Actually, Hungarian is an Uralic language and is related to both Finnish and Estonian, but not to any other European language as they are otherwise in the Indo-European language.

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