Recipe(tried): Barscz - Polish Beet Soup

My Mother made this for years for Wilia, the traditional Polish Christmas Eve meal. Now I do. It was the first course. We used to call it Pink Soup because it's a lovely fuschia color. We add sour cream at the end but if you wish the soup to be clear, just eliminate the sour cream. Also, we use the dried mushrooms to make the stock but they can be eliminated without bad results. Sometimes the dried mushrooms are hard to find; I usually get them in an Italian store nearby. You need very few.

Barscz - Polish Beet Soup

1/4 to 1/2 oz. dried black mushrooms
1 quart of water
1 bunch fresh beets
2 16 oz. cans of beets and liquid
1 tsp sugar (or to taste)
1 Tblsp. vinegar (or to taste)
2 pints sour cream
3 Tblsp flour
1/2 stick of butter

Soak mushrooms in water to cover until soft, rinsing from time to time. Drain well, reserving liquid. Use this liquid as stock. This is entirely optional. You can go with just the beet liquid.

Cook fresh beets, save liquid, cut beets in small chunks or shoestrings.

Add canned beets (also cut up)and their liquid to fresh beets and liquid. Simmer. Add 1/2 stick of butter. If you want the clear barscz, you're done. If you wish, whisk flour into sour cream and then into soup. I do recommend this, it's delicious.

The soup can be made ahead of time, adding the sour cream at the last minute. Reheat slowly and don't cover or you lose the lovely creamy pink color. And don't let it boil after adding the sour cream.

It's a simple recipe. Some people cook a sliced onion with the beets. Some add veggie bouillon to the broth. I don't use either. Sometimes I quickly saute the mushrooms in butter and add to the soup.

We add hot fried potatoes/onions to the soup in the bowl when we eat it; this adds flavor too.

Hope this recipe helps you. It's probably way more than you needed or wanted to know. There are other much different recipes with other ingredients but this the plain soup.

Thanks for the inquiry; it forced me to gather the bits of information I have in order to clarify the recipe for my daughter who will some day inherit the responsibility for Wilia.