Polish Sour Rye Soup: Żurek Recipe!

Żurek is a very popular Polish soup. Also known as polish sour rye soup, Żurek is an amazing dish for Easter. It’s one of the easiest soup recipes, but it’s rarely cooked because some unique ingredients are required. It uses exotic herbs such as marjoram and fermented rye flour.  

In this article on the Żurek recipe, we’ll be sharing how to make the polish sour rye soup. Alongside, we’ll share some Polish recipes that’ll give you an idea of how you can take the Żurek sour soup to the next level.

Before We Begin

It takes around 2 hours to make Żurek. However, you’ll need to wait around three days before the rye is fermented properly. Due to fermented rye, it’s often called sour rye soup. So, you need to plan and start at least three days in advance. 

Żurek was a very frugal soup, as it didn’t require a lot of ingredients. Later on, Masovians took the Polish food and added boiled eggs, onion pieces, garlic cloves, and marjoram. 

Due to the addition of different herbs and spices, Żurek became more of a hearty soup. This article will discuss how to make the Masovian version of the Żurek soup cuisine.

Making the Sour Rye Starter

You can always purchase a pack of sour rye starter from a Polish grocery store, but this sour liquid might not be available everywhere. Then again, sour rye starter from different brands varies in taste. So, we recommend making this by yourself as this is an important sour base.

Required Ingredients

• Rye flour/Dark rye flour: Half cup 
• Cool water: Two cups 
• Boiled water: Two cups 
• Garlic clove: Five pieces
• Bay leaf: Three pieces
• Fresh marjoram: One tbsp
• One glass container 
• All-spice berry: Six pieces
• Whole peppercorn:  Six pieces

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Recipe of Sour Rye Starter

Start this process at least 3-4 days before making the sour rye soup, as this will take some time to finish. 

1.    Mix Rye Flour with Water

You need a glass container to make a sour rye starter. Mix half a cup of rye flour with cool water in the jar. Keep on stirring the mixture until the rye flour dissolves completely. 

2.    Add Ingredients

Next up, the rest of the ingredients in the mix. Stir properly, so all the ingredients are mixed properly. Cover the jar with a towel and let it rest for three days. After three days, look if there’s any bubble on the mixture. Let it sit for one or two days more if there isn’t. The jar must be stored at room temperature throughout this time. 

3.     Let It Rest 

Once the bubbles appear on top of the rye, it’s ready for usage. Other than the bubbles, you should check if the mixture is sour and fragrant or not. At this stage, you can add more rye flour to the mix. 

If you don’t like the smell of garlic, then you can skip out on it entirely. However, you should directly add some garlic to the polish sour rye soup, or it won’t taste as good. You can close the jar and refrigerate it to store it for a long time. 

In case you add further rye flour after the bubbles appear, you let the mixture ferment for 3-4 days more. 

Making the Polish Sour Rye Soup

Now that we know how to make the fermented rye flour mixture, we can make the Żurek. This section will discuss how to use the fermented rye flour starter for preparing
Żurek. 

Required Ingredients

• Fermented rye flour starter: 1 Liter
• Water: As per the necessity
• Carrot: One
• Small Parsley root: One 
• Celery Root: 2-inch piece
• Smoked slab bacon:  six pounds
• Polish sausage: Six links
• Dried marjoram: 3 tbsp
• Salt: 1 tbsp
• Garlic: 2 cloves
• Black pepper: As per the necessity
• Eggs
• Prepared horseradish: 6 tbsp 

Recipe for the Soup

Once you have the rye starter in hand, you can finally get started with making the soup. Follow the steps below:

1.    Mix the Ingredients

The first step is very straightforward. Take the garlic, bay leaves, celery root, vegetables, smoked bacon, sausages and put them in a soup pot or a Dutch oven full of boiling water. Adding the chop bacon early allows the bacon fat to break and dissolve easily in the vegetable broth. 

Add water as per necessity. If you’re following the list given above, you should put 1.5 quarts of water. The white borscht can be improved further by adding dried mushrooms. Some restaurants also use chopped parsley. 

2.    Boil at Medium Heat

Start heating the pot. After a few minutes of boiling at medium heat, some solids will begin to appear on the surface of the mix. Skim them off as they appear. Simmer the mixture for half an hour while in this state. 

3.    Remove the Sausage and Vegetables

By the end of 30 minutes, some of the ingredients, like the celery root and bay leaves, will become almost indistinguishable from the mix. In this state, you’ll need to remove the vegetables and white kielbasa from the soup. Using a slotted spoon for this task will make things easier. 

We recommend cutting the Polish sausage into small cubes after taking them out. 

4.    Add the Spices

Next up, add the rye starter to the soup. Along with that, add a pinch of marjoram and crushed garlic to enhance the flavor of the Żurek. You can also add the small cubes of Polish sausage to the mix at this stage. Boil the entire pot at low heat for five minutes upon adding these. 

5.    Add Salt and Pepper 

You’re mostly done after that. Feel free to add some salt and pepper if necessary. 

6.    Wait after Cooking

While the Polish soup will become ready to serve after that, we recommend waiting at least a few hours or overnight before serving it finally. When serving, you can add a hard-boiled egg to it. Instead of white sausage, you can also try this sour soup with smoked sausage. 

Serving Żurek

In a Polish restaurant, Żurek soup is traditionally served on bread. This polish cuisine is most commonly served in sourdough bread, which is why it’s often called sour bread soup by locals. 

It’s not mandatory to serve it in a bread bowl. You can do that in a regular bowl instead. If you want to be minimalistic about it, you can always serve it in a simple bowl with some boiled eggs, white sausage, pork bacon, and a garnish of fresh marjoram. 

Conclusion

While executing our Żurek recipe, prep time is one of the key factors that must be considered. Żurek soup takes quite some time to be ready. If you don’t plan at least a week ahead, chances are you won’t end up getting the taste you want from this foreign palate. 

So, we recommend investing sufficient prep time. With these in mind, hopefully, you’ll be able to prepare a perfect dish of Żurek sour soup!