Skip to main content
Main

Barscz a LA Polonaise- -polish Beet Soup

A hearty soup of julienned beet, leeks, onions, cabbage, celery, beef, duck, mushrooms, herbs, and sour beets, served with sour cream.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 18 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Celery and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,810 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Barscz a LA Polonaise- -polish Beet Soup

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the vegetables

  1. Shred the beet roots, leeks, onions, Savoy cabbage, and celery knobs into julienne strips.

  2. Smother the vegetables in butter over low heat.

  3. Moisten the vegetables with the broth and beet-root juice.

Make the soup

  1. Add the parboiled brisket and partially roasted duck to the pot.

  2. Soak the dried mushrooms in cold water, then shred them and add them to the soup.

  3. Add a bundle of herbs (parsley, marjoram, bay leaves, and clove) to the pot.

  4. Remove the duck once tender.

  5. Let the soup simmer until the beef is cooked.

  6. Remove the herb bundle from the soup.

  7. Remove any fat from the soup.

  8. Cut the beef and duck into small pieces.

Add the sausages and finish

  1. Cook the small sausages.

  2. Remove the skin from the sausages.

  3. Add the sausages along with the meats to the soup.

  4. Scrape the sour beets.

  5. Press the liquid from the beets through a cloth.

  6. Add the pressed liquid to the soup.

  7. Heat the soup well before serving.

  8. Add a pinch of chopped fennel before serving.

  9. Serve with sour cream on the side.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Celery + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together6,810 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Leek + cabbagetop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together214 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

  3. Leek + celerytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,093 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Leek + oniontop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,326 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl butyrate (apple, fruity).

  5. Leek + parsleytop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together759 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Beet roots
Give the soup its deep red colour and earthy sweetness.
Fermented beet-root juice
Adds sourness and tang that balances the sweetness of the vegetables.
Brisket of beef
Contributes savoury meaty flavour and body to the broth as it cooks.
Duck
Adds rich fat and savoury depth to the broth.
Leeks
Add mild onion-like sweetness and aroma to the base.
Sour beets
Add further acidity and tang to the finished soup.

The step that matters

Heat the soup well before serving. Sour cream and the finished soup must be hot enough to be safe to eat, but boiling after the sour cream is added can curdle it, so heat the soup thoroughly before adding the cream at the table.

Swap the cabbage

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (leek, onion, celery, butter, beef, mushroom, parsley):

  1. Chivefits better
  2. Carrotfits better
  3. Shallotfits better
  4. Cabbagethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against leek, onion, celery, butter, beef, mushroom, parsley. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

You might also like

Roast BeefRoast Beef211 recipesBeef LoafBeef Loaf175 recipesCream of Celery SoupCream of Celery Soup113 recipesCorned BeefCorned Beef87 recipes