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Happy Easter!
Radosny Świąt!

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In Polish, this soup is called Bialy Barszcz, which means ‘White Borscht’. Before you conclude that it’s a beet soup for racists, you should know that “borscht” means ‘sour soup’ … you might also translate it as ‘tart’ or ‘tangy’ soup. Borscht made with red beets is the most common type, but certainly not the only type. White borscht is made from kielbasa, wild mushrooms, and an array of root vegetables (but not beets). In a traditional version, the sourness comes from a fermented rye-flour slurry. My version, Phenomenal Polish Smoked Sausage Soup, gets its tartness from sour cream.

White borscht is rustic, festive, and incredible. It’s a fairly involved, stew-like soup that is generally reserved for only the most special occasions – the kind of thing you might make as the first course of an elaborate holiday meal, for instance. And I’m telling you, it deserves that kind of reverence. I think of it as the cassoulet of Polish foods: hearty, of peasant origins, and the kind of thing you’d travel miles to taste if you heard of someone who knew how to make an authentic version.

Like all Polish foods, this phenomenal Polish smoked sausage soup is a lot of hard work, but relies on humble ingredients. It’s not tricky, though. So long as you’re willing to do the work, you can pull this off. There is one catch: the kielbasa has to be of the highest quality. Not only is it the star of the soup, but it’s used to flavor the base of the broth. If what you know as kielbasa is the kind of thing that’d be at home right along side a hot dog or brat, on a bun, that’s not going to work here. A really good, artisan kielbasa has no place on a bun. It’s a delicacy: so savory, flavorful, balanced, and nuanced that you’d eat it unadorned, like a steak. (Or maybe with a tiny bit of mustard.) To find this kind of kielbasa, your best bet is to go a Polish shop. Of course, I realize that’s not possible for everyone. Your second best bet is to go to a butcher and find out if they make their own kielbasa. Polish or not, if they make their own, chances are it’s going to be worlds apart from a pre-packaged, national brand. Third best bet, find a good sausage shop; perhaps they’ve procured something authentic. You can read more about how to know a good kielbasa when you see one, here.

Serves a dozen, generously

2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
2 lbs. smoked kielbasa
9.5 oz. parsnips, peeled and diced (3 parsnips)
Olive oil
Salt and pepper
8 oz. carrots, peeled and diced (two-to-three carrots)
1 ten-oz. white onion, peeled and diced
1 lb 5 oz. red potatoes, peeled and diced (4 average-size potatoes)
1-2 oz. dried mushroom blend
1 cup white wine (Ca’Vescovo Pinot Grigio 2015)
3 bay leaves
1-2 cloves garlic (optional), smashed
1-1½ tsp allspice
1-1½ tsp marjoram
3 tsp low-sodium chicken or beef base (or bouillon)
4 tsp horseradish
1 lb. (2 cups) sour cream, plus more for serving
1/2 cup AP flour
Hard boiled eggs, one per serving (optional)

Place stock and 10 cups water into a very large (such as 10″ diameter, 6″ tall) soup or stock pot. Prick the kielbasa here and there with a fork and tuck it into the pot, submerging it fully. Cover, and bring to a boil over a high flame. Simmer 25 minutes. Remove kielbasa to a plate and set aside. Leave the broth in the pot. Defat it if you wish. Meanwhile, sauté the vegetables.

Sauté the vegetables – all except for the potatoes – in batches, so as not to overcrowd your pan, starting with a Tbs of oil and adding more in between batches only if necessary. Season each batch as you sauté, to taste.

Once the kielbasa has been boiled, pour the mushrooms into a small mixing bowl. Pour 1 cup of the hot broth over them. Add wine. Stir. Set aside for 15-20 minutes. Leave the broth off heat, but covered.

Cook the potatoes: add potatoes, bay leaves, veggies, mushrooms (including their liquid), (and garlic) to the broth pot. Cover it, bring it back to a boil, and simmer until potatoes are soft, 15-20 minutes. Off heat. Add allspice, marjoram, 3 tsp salt, chicken base, and horseradish. Slice the kielbasa (you might find that a serrated knife works best for this) and add it back into the soup. In a medium-sized mixing bowl, whisk flour and sour cream together. Add broth to the sour cream mixture a half-cup at a time, whisking, until it comes to room temperature. Pour mixture into the soup, whisking. Simmer, stirring often, until thickened, about 5 minutes. Correct seasoning.

At this point, the soup is ready to serve. However, if time allows, let it cool, refrigerate it overnight, and reheat it tomorrow. It will be stratospherically better. Serve garnished with (slices of egg and) dollops of sour cream. I don’t consider the sour cream garnish optional; the soup is incomplete without it.

Notes:

1. Traditionally, you don’t buy kielbasa by the pound; you buy it by the stick. When making this soup, I’ll buy more than the required amount. I’ll chop off the excess, and while the kielbasa is boiling, I’ll slice up the extra, fry it up, and nosh on it as I make the soup. That way, I’ll know how garlicky it is.
2. Usually, if you decide to boil kielbasa, you need to simmer it carefully, so as not to split the skin. Normally, you wouldn’t prick it with a fork. For the purposes of this dish, though, the kielbasa’s skin needs to rupture so that its juices can bleed out into the water.
3. I like to get kielbasa from Paulina Market, although around the holidays, it can be next to impossible. Once, I arrived to find that there were so many people in the store, that they had rotated all the way around their take-a-number system and were doling out a second round of numbers before the originals had been served – so, when they called for “70,” two people would respond. Crazy. Crazy, especially when Kasia’s Deli has absolutely fantastic kielbasa, and although it has a huge following, I’ve never found it to be as daunting as Paulina. Paulina is essentially a German butcher extended into something broadly western European. If they’re not Polish, though, they know their sausages. They make a special batch of kielbasa for Easter, and I have to say, it’s wonderful … so well balanced: all the flavors you want in a kielbasa, but also a savory meatiness to it where many kielbasas usually have fat, and a mellow, black-pepper after taste that leaves you wanting more (and beer). Kasia’s kielbasa, however, it ultra-traditional, completely Polish. Kielbasa your Polish grandmother would love. And while you’re there, you can find just about everything in your Polish grandmother’s repertoire, from pierogi to kruschicki, and it’s all as perfect as your childhood memories (if you grew up in a Polish family with a very good Polish cook as a grandmother).
4. You never know how garlicy a kielbasa is going to be; that’s why the additional garlic is optional. You’ll be surprised, though, at how much the sour cream balances out the garlic.
5. Root vegetables are common in this soup. Given that, you can be flexible about the amounts and the particular types. Celery root, for instance, would be a fantastic addition.
6. Chicken is preferable, but you can use beef stock. Beef will turn the soup more off-white than is traditional – it will taste great, though, and is fine if you’re not hung up on having a chowder-white soup.
7. The optional egg makes this an attractive dish to serve for Easter. Every year, you dye all those eggs, and then what do you do with them afterward? Make egg salad? That’s awesome but try this: set the table with an Easter egg at every place setting. Let the guests peel them as you dish out the soup. Each guest slices their egg right onto their soup. Then, you pass the sour cream. The egg isn’t essential to the soup, but it does bring a lot to it.
8. If you’re doing your prep in advance, you may need to soak the prepped potatoes in water. If you leave prepped potatoes out too long, they’ll turn brown. But if you leave them submerged in water, they’ll be fine.
9. Don’t be shy about correcting the seasoning in the final step. The soup will probably need some salt, for sure, and you may find yourself needing to add a bit more of the spices as well as the horseradish. In the end, you don’t want any single flavor to stick out, but you want them all to be balanced.

Phenomenal Polish Smoked Sausage Soup

Credit for images on this page: Make It Like a Man! This content was not solicited, nor written in exchange for anything. Here’s an ultra-traditional version of this soup: White Borscht Soup Recipe (Zurek). This version does use a slurry. Definitely ethnic. Sounds interesting. Note that it requires four to five days of prep! That’s how real Poles roll!

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