Elīza Ilze Malceniece (left) and Minnie Leong You encounter all the flavours of the world in our WUR community. Elīza Ilze Malceniece, an MSc student of Plant Sciences from Latvia, and Minnie Leong, a PhD student in the Laboratory of Plant Physiology from Hong Kong, share a recipe for aukstā zupa: cold soup or ‘Barbie soup’.
‘My friend Minnie asked me to make a Latvian dish for dinner. As I am not the world’s greatest cook, I decided to make a cold soup that is very popular and easy to make. It’s a nice dish on a sunny summer day. Actually, this soup is typical not only of Latvia but of many Eastern European countries. If you add beetroot — which you usually do — then it’s pink. Because everyone’s talking about the Barbie movie, we joked that it’s a Barbie soup, and we decided to send it to Resource for the recipe column.’
Ingredients:
- 3-4 eggs
- Jar of beetroot
- 1 fresh cucumber
- 3-4 tbsp finely chopped fresh dill
- 3-4 tbsp finely chopped spring onion
- 1L kefir
- 1 tsp horseradish paste
- 1 tsp mustard
- salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
- sausage
- a dash of beer (originally kvass, a non-alcoholic drink made from barley and malt)
Preparation (20 minutes)
- Hard-boil the eggs and put them in cold water.
- Peel the cucumber. Cut it into small straws or grate it.
- Cut eggs, sausage and beetroots into small pieces.
- Chop spring onions and dill.
- Put all these ingredients into a big bowl.
- Add salt and pepper.
- Add kefir and mix everything.
- Add mustard and horseradish, and stir again.
- Add a dash of beer (optional) and stir again.
- If the consistency seems too thick, add water.
- Your cold soup is ready to be chilled.
Most Latvians eat the soup with a slice of rye bread. There are many variations on this soup: you can add onions or chopped boiled potatoes or, if you are vegetarian, make it without meat.
