At last there comes long-awaited heat. But thirty degrees in the shade bring no excitement. The atmosphere is stifling and there is no inclination to cook anything. But the soul (i.e. stomach) demands something tasty and necessarily cool. The only ideal way out is okroshka, a cold kvass soup. It is the favorite dish of Russian citizens, tortured by unbearable summer temperatures.

Here is the Kvass on the Table

As a matter of fact, kvass was the favorite drink of our predecessors, but even nowadays it lost no popularity among the Russians. Since old times it has been used for seasoning cold dishes with black radish, horse-radish and other products. It was also the basis for cooking simple thin dishes like turia (seasoned with kvass chopped onions and bread or sometimes dried crusts) and different sorts of okroshka, beetroot soup and botvinnia. Vodka hadn’t been invented yet, but kvass was already popular. Even Casanova himself, who happened to visit our country, noted in his memoirs, that Russian boyars gave to their servants a wonderful drink that even a duke wouldn’t reject.

What should be added?

As well as in a pie, you can add everything in okroshka. But some products can not be combined, that’s why several sorts of okroshka should be distinguished. To any kind of okroshka you can add boiled eggs, fresh cucumbers (the more finely they are chopped, the better it is), spring onions and fennel. Boiled potatoes may be either added or omitted; it all depends upon your own tastes and likes. Besides spring onions and fennel you can season okroshka with practically any vegetable or wild greens, but be careful with too spicy herbs like kinza, you should try it first. Don’t also forget about radish or black radish — they are just the thing for a fish okroshka. Here are possible meat seasonings for okroshka: boiled beef, lenten bacon, sausages, boiled chicken, boiled pork, gammon or tongue. Fish okroshka is a special case. You should take fish which is not too bony. You can cook it with smoked or boiled fish. Fish for okroshka should be boiled in a very salted water. Mushrooms are rarely put into okroshka, but it is a mistake. If you add prickled honey agarics to a meat okroshka, you will get a wonderful dainty. To a fish okroshka you may add salted mushrooms.

How to Cook Okroshka?

Let’s go down to the main creative work. Here is an original recipe of okroshka by Boris Burda

: boil some eggs hard and separate yolks from whites. Then chop the whites finely and put aside for a while. Add some good burning Russian mustard to the yolks, salt the mixture, add some sugar (if you like), about a spoonful of sour cream for a helping and then grind everything into a homogeneous paste. In a separate plate chop spring onions finely and pound it with a spoon for quite a long period of time until it gives sap.

Now it comes to vegetables and meat. They should also be chopped finely; it makes the dish seem tastier. There is such an opinion that pieces of hard products should be smaller than those of soft ones, otherwise they would seem alien. The shape of the pieces also plays an important role: geometrically shaped pieces cause astonishment, thus spoiling the real sensations from the dish.

Seasonings for Okroshka

There are a lot of variants of seasonings of okroshka; the most popular of them is Russian kvass. To season okroshka you should take sour kvass, which is made in the following way. Take some cold water and put rye crusts into it. Beforehand you may fry the crusts in the oven, after that kvass will get a more saturated color. For five liters of water you should take about one forth of a loaf of crust. Then add three or four spoonfuls of sugar, about a dozen of raisins and, if you have it, a hop cone. Then cover the pot with a piece of gauze and put it into a warm place. Once a day you should open the pot and stir the contents with a spoon, otherwise kvass will grow mould. In three — five days (it depends upon the weather, namely temperature) kvass is ready, the indicator of this are sodden crusts which gradually sink to the bottom of the pot. The pot with the kvass should be put into cold without removing the crusts. Before using it you should strain the kvass through a sieve and then add sugar to your taste. You may make kvass for okroshka with honey, mint, leaves of black currants.

Besides kvass for seasoning okroshka you may try: whey, buttermilk, yoghurt, currants-water, sour clotted milk, beer, beetroot marinade, sorrel-water or tea-fungus.

It is Interesting

When in your dream you make okroshka, it means that you will act wrong with a man who is going to marry you, whatever the circumstances. If you eat okroshka, it means a boring society of old people, where you should play the role of an attentive listener.

If you treat somebody to okroshka and this man rejects the idea of trying the dish — this means that a wonderful case which seemed to meet no trouble will suddenly come to a standstill because of some unpredicted circumstances. Okroshka, that turned sour, means a sign of dissatisfaction and disillusionment.

Some History

It is interesting to mention that even at the beginning of the nineteenth century okroshka was served as appetizer, but not as the first course. It was cooked on kvass or sour cabbage-soup, with cucumber and cabbage brine, sour milk, whey and buttermilk.