Šaltibarščiai

Ingredients

• Beetroot — boiled and grated500 g
• Kefir — cold1 l
• Cucumbers2
• Eggs — hard-boiled4
• Dill40 g
• Spring onion40 g
• Potatoes — to serve, hot800 g
• Soured cream150 ml
• Saltto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Boil the beetroot until tender, cool it completely and grate it coarsely.

   45 min

2. 2

   Cut the cucumbers into matchsticks and chop the dill and spring onion.

   8 min

3. 3

   Mix the beetroot, cucumber and herbs with the soured cream and salt it now, before the kefir, so the salt disperses.

   5 min

4. 4

   Pour in the cold kefir and stir. The soup turns an even pink.

   3 min

5. 5

   Chill it for an hour. Warm šaltibarščiai makes no sense.

   60 min

6. 6

   Boil the potatoes and serve them hot on a separate plate. Put halved eggs into the soup.

   25 min

About the dish

The colour is half the dish. It comes from boiled beetroot in kefir, and the colder the soup the brighter the pink; warm, it looks dull and cloudy.

The potatoes come hot and separate, on their own plate. The contrast of cold soup and hot potato is the point of the dish, not a serving quirk.

Lithuanians eat šaltibarščiai from May to September and take the season seriously: out of it, cafés simply do not serve it.

Worth knowing

• — The beetroot can be roasted instead of boiled — deeper flavour and a stronger colour.
• — Kefir varies in thickness. Let a heavy one down with cold water, not milk: milk dulls the acidity the whole dish rests on.
• — Pickled beetroot instead of boiled is a common shortcut, but it makes the soup sharp. A spoon of vinegar into boiled beetroot does the same thing more gently.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

320 kcal

Protein

14 g

Fat

12 g

Carbs

40 g

More from Lithuania

• Cepelinai — Large potato dumplings with a meat filling, named after airships. Served with crackling and soured cream.