Pickle Soup question.

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larry_stewart

Master Chef
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My Polish assistant, who often gives me a jar of her mothers home made pickles asked me if I wanted her to bring in a jar of her mothers Pickle Soup.

Honestly, I never heard of it before until she mentioned it. She uses a meat stock, a jar of pickles ( which she dumps in all the juice and grates the pickles up. Adds potatoes, and at the end either some heavy cream, or sour cream.

Since I dont eat meat, Im going to use a vegetable stock, but before I sacrifice a jar of pickles, I was wondering if anyone has ever tried it ( eating or making) ?

Im not sure if Im going to like it, but the idea fascinates me.

Larry
 
My husband's family is Polish and he had it regularly while growing up. I never had it till a few years ago when we had lunch at a Polish restaurant in Michigan while visiting family there. I was surprised but I liked it very much. I happen to love pickles, but the pickle flavor wasn't as strong as I was afraid it would be. It was good. Give it a try :)
 
I have had a Russian soup very similar but with barley and chopped leftover deli meats in it. I loved it! I would add some small diced carrots or other veg to a meatless one.
 
I had never heard of this until I caught part of an episode of Guy's DDD. I'm not a huge pickle fan but was intrigued. I got as far as looking at several recipes ... but never did try making it.
 
Dill pickles and what size jar??

My assistants mom makes it, and its one of those " throw together " recipes. The jar of pickles she gives me is about a quart. I asked her if thats the size she throws in the soup, and she said yes. Probably safer to go with the link up above or find another. Im guessing if her mom is anything like me, ID probably eat a pickle or two while preparing the recipe :yum: ( and probably drink some of the pickle juice too:LOL: )
 
i'd never heard if it before i moved into my primarily polish neighborhood, so when i saw a sign one day (remarkably translated to american - what a shock) that it was the special of the day, i had to try it.

much like 4me's, it seemed to be a leftovers soup. delicious, nonetheless.

the pickles aren't the star in it, but add some texture and an interesting piquant bite here and there.
 
My assistants mom makes it, and its one of those " throw together " recipes. The jar of pickles she gives me is about a quart. I asked her if thats the size she throws in the soup, and she said yes. Probably safer to go with the link up above or find another. Im guessing if her mom is anything like me, ID probably eat a pickle or two while preparing the recipe :yum: ( and probably drink some of the pickle juice too:LOL: )

Spike and I fight over who get the juice. It is often gone before the pickles.

Love the sound of the soup. The recipe calls for dills. But I wonder how the taste would be altered if you used something like sours? :angel:
 
Spike and I fight over who get the juice. It is often gone before the pickles.

l:
i think there' a verse in the bible about
that.

the juice goeth before the pickle. :D

i learned from another coach this season that pickle juice is better than gatorade for hydrating players before and after games. from my experience with the boy scouts many years ago when they gave you salt tablets and lots of water on tough hikes in hot weather, the salt in the pickle juice made sense.

but i looked into it further, and it seems to be true, as far as gatorade goes.

so i decided to tell my boys about it, and they were thrilled. most of them love pickle juice, and their coach telling them it's good for them is even better.
one kid, the adhd kid that i've been working with, used to go into big, dramatic displays when he got a cramp when it was time for wind sprints.
after telling him about the pickle juice, he hasn't had a cramping event since (just other attention craving episodes, but that's another story).

i'm tempted to bring sport bottles filled with watered diwn pickle juice with added food colouring (for cool tongue staining) to our next practice.
 
Larry,

Interesting topic. When I looked at the name of it I thought to myself, ok I love pickles and I love soup, but I have never heard of pickled soup and will not be able to make any suggestions. However, I thought to myself, I must read what it is about, go figure, I too make pickled soup, just never new to call it by that name.
Polish and Ukrainian cuisines are very similar and yet very different. Many years of Polish occupation of Ukraine and then Soviet annexation of part of Poland, have influenced cooking in both countries, though I think with plenty of resistance on both sides. So you find the same dish that is made almost completely different in some cases and in some case are in fact very similar. Just like Ukrainian borscht when is made in Poland has very little to do with its original version.
Anyways back to pickles and the soup. This is how I make mine. Beef or chicken cooked and at this time you can take it out, leave it in, depends on how much meat you want in your dinner. By the way that tells me that you can absolutely make it vegetarian. Just use either vegetarian stock or one of those fake beef/chicken stocks you can buy in any store nowadays. Diced onions, I like it very small dice, as I do not like seeing onion in my soup, but what kind of soup is it without onion, not in Ukrainian cuisine. Chop potatoes and carrots anyway you like, again I prefer somewhat smaller pieces, less chewing in the end. Some people use barely, and some use rice, personally I am a rice person. Though majority will cook one of them in the soup, I strongly suggest cooking rice separately, unless you are making enough soup to finish it in one seating. When everything is practically cooked I add pickles, for crying out loud no Vinegar pickles, you have to have real deal pickles, or garlic deals. Usually you can find some in the kosher section; the Ba Tampte brand makes excellent pickles for this soup. (Here is the link to look: http://www.batamptepickle.com/products.php) For the small, say 4 quart pot I would say you’d need 4 or so pickles, you can also add pickle juice, that is actually is a good trick because after soup is ready and you feel like you want it to taste more sour just add couple of spoons of juice and mix well. Especially when making first time I would strongly recommend putting less pickles. A lot of times this soup is made with kidneys, so the bay leaves are added to make sure there is no smell. You don’t have to worry about the smell, but still throw couple leaves in there just as a tribute to the tradition. Otherwise spice it to your likeness. Oh, forgot to say I love pickles, but G-d forbid I see one in the soup, I would never touch it, so I grate them on the big hole grater, and let them cook for good 15-20 minutes then they practically dissolve.
Serve with sour cream, or if you do not use sour cream, I do not, I mix a little bit of mayonnaise and lemon juice together and put about a half of a tea spoon per bowl of soup. Enjoy.
 
...
i learned from another coach this season that pickle juice is better than gatorade for hydrating players...


100% true, why do you think the pickle juice is used for hangover, ask any nutritionist(sp?) and they will tell you that Russian have it right. :LOL:
 
The soup I had is called Rassolnik. Here is a recipe that is meatless except the stock which you can change.

Rassolnik – Russian Soup With Pickles and Barley –

Oh, wow, look at that, on eof this days I will learn how to read answers before mine. That is exactly what I was refering to. Rassolnik. I would skip frying vegies, who needs extra fat. Though if making it vegetarian it may not be so bad.
 
Oh, wow, look at that, on eof this days I will learn how to read answers before mine. That is exactly what I was refering to. Rassolnik. I would skip frying vegies, who needs extra fat. Though if making it vegetarian it may not be so bad.

Charlie, you do just fine with your posts. I love reading what you post. And you have shown so much improvement with our language over this past year. Not an easy accomplishment. Go Charlie!!! :clap::flowers: :angel:
 
Thanks Addie, I think it is new Word software that improved, not my English. I try to use it more. Type there first, do the spell check and post here.
 
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