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Polish kitchen

Zurek

A sour rye soup with sausage, egg and enough marjoram to perfume the flat. The traditional starter needs five days of fermenting in a jar, so buy a bottle of zakwas and start the soup instead.

Total time
18 min
Serves
2
Effort
Easy

What you need

Written for 2 — nudge the counter and the numbers follow.

Cooking for
2 people

0 of 10 in the basket.

How you make it

  1. Boil the eggs for 9 minutes for firm yolks, then cool under cold water and peel. Halve them just before serving.

  2. Fry the lardons and onion in a saucepan over medium heat for 5 minutes, then add the sausage and garlic and cook 2 minutes more.

  3. Pour in the stock, add the diced potato and simmer for 7 minutes until the potato is tender and the sausage is cooked right through.

  4. Shake the starter bottle well, stir it in with the marjoram and bring back to a bare simmer for 2 minutes without boiling.

  5. Temper the soured cream with a ladle of hot soup, stir it back into the pan off the heat, and serve with the egg halves on top.

Read all that and thought “absolutely not”?

Completely fair. Zurek is sitting in the Polish kitchen right now, it costs nothing, and it will never arrive.

Order it instead

Dumplings, sour cream, and a nap immediately after.