A kind of Russian Gazpacho - I love cold soup and adore the yoghurty kind. This is a really delicious way to enjoy your milk kefir as it's so refreshing, so good for you and fills you up without that heavy feeling. 

There are different ways of serving it - depending on the occasion - either put it all together in a pot, kefir and whey as well and keep in the fridge to soak all of the flavours in and serve like any other soup.

OR and this is my preferred way. Pile the vegetables together on shallow bowls, serve and have a jug of kefir to pour over yourselves, with little dishes of salt, dill, cornichons and any other condiments that you fancy.

This soup is better known using Rye Kvass, but I’m a fan of the milk kefir version - something to do with a Danish summer dessert. 

Ingredients 

  • 3 cups of milk kefir
  • 3 cups of whey - If you don’t have whey substitute with water with the juice of a lemon, or 2 tablespoons of white vinegar
  • 2 boiled medium red potatoes, cut into cubes
  • 4 hard boiled eggs, chopped
  • 2 cucumbers, but in small cubes, seeds removed
  • 1 bunch radishes, thinly sliced
  • 1 cup of chopped spring onions
  • ¼ cup each of dill, coriander, parsley

Ingredients for Georgian Salt - see right column. 

How to

  1. Dissolve horseradish and mustard in a bit of kefir and let seep.
  2. Pound scallions, dill, coriander and parsley with a few large pinches of salt until aromatic, just a few bashes, no paste making please.
  3. Combine the diced and boiled potatoes with herb mixture, mixing well and quite roughly to get the herbiness in.
  4. Also mix in the kefir mustard and horseradish mixture
  5. Mix, gently this time, with the eggs, cucumber and radish
  6. Add some salt to taste and chill for 1 hour or more in the fridge
  7. You can either pour the kefir over the top and refrigerate like that allowing the kefir gets some flavours from the vegetables and becomes nice and cold for serving OR - my preferenc is to serve with condiments on the table, and the vegetables all piled into individual little bowls.
  8. This way you'll need to have the kefir whey mixture to pour over the top yourself - put that into a nice ceramic jug or something similar.  It does make it a bit easier for people less familiar with cold yoghurt soups.
  9. Garnish with Georgian salt*

*Georgian salt  - This is actually great as a spice mix in making a kraut, over eggs, avocado, tomatoes on toast etc. Also in the oil for labneh. I’ve kind of been sprinkling it everywhere.

Simply Mix 

  • 1 Tablespoon each of dried dill, fenugreek powder, red pepper, marigold (if you can find it)
  • 2 tablespoons of dried coriander
  • ½ tablespoon dried cumin
  • 6½ T of good salt.
Written by Sharon Flynn

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Milk Kefir

Comments

Hi
Many of you probably know that the marigolds used in food are Calendulas NOT the marigolds from the targetes family. I nearly got caught by this once.
Smiles Max

Max on Apr 04, 2023

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