Ogorkowa - Polish Cucumber Soup Recipe

Although Polish cuisine seems to has an inclination towards time-consuming and laborious recipes, there are also some Polish foods that are both tasty and simple/fast to prepare. For example - the ogorkowa soup, or in other words: cucumber soup. Neither refined nor festive this Polish soup is quite ordinary and everyday, but very much liked and popular.

Ingredients in this recipe:

Broth:

0,5 kg of meat or meat with bone
0,5 kg of vegetables (carrot, parsley, celery, leek) or wloszczyzna mix
half medium onion
spices (a few peppercorns, bay leaf, black pepper and salt to taste)

Soup:

1,5 l of broth
7-8 large pickled cucumbers
1 medium onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 tablespoons of white flour
2 tablespoons of butter
100 ml sour cream (or tart yoghurt)
3 medium potatoes

Recipe:

1 At first we need to prepare a typical broth, so use meat and vegetables. Wash bones and meat thoroughly in hot water and put them into the pot. Pour six cups of cold water. Cook it on a strong fire under a cover. Then decrease the flame and cook gently for about 1 hour. Of course as usually you can simply use stock cubes making all simpler and faster (but with some loss on a quality of food, as some say).

2 In a meantime wash and peel vegetables and put them into the broth. Boil all together. At the end of cooking add spices: few peppercorns, bay leaf, black pepper and salt to taste.

3 When broth with vegetable is on its way, melt some butter on a frying pan and fry 1 medium, diced onion. When onion begins to brown add chopped or crushed garlic, mix precisely and still fry on a low fire for about 10 minutes.

4 In this time wash cucumbers, peel and grate on a grater with big holes, so that what you get are stripes not too minuscule. Throw all cucumber stripes to garlic & onion - fry all together some minutes more. Then add this mixture to your broth.

5 Now, peel potatoes, cut into small pieces (dices) and throw into the ogorkowa soup.

6 Cook everything on a rather low fire until potatoes are soft and edible.

7 Time to make a suspension of flour with sour cream to (as they say in Poland) 'whiten' our cucumber soup. To do so simply mix 2 tablespoons of white flour and 100 ml of sour cream. You can also use tart yoghurt. Now slowly pour it into the soup, constantly and vigorously stirring. Mix precisely.

8 Cook your soup for another few minutes, but do not let it to boil. Season ogorkowa soup with salt and black pepper according to your taste.

I hope that you find this ogorkowa - Polish cucumber soup recipe useful. Enjoy your meal! Smacznego! :)