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Passport & Plate - Latvian summer in a bowl

Latvia | Thursday, March 5, 2015 | 5 photos

Ingredients
One large young beet
Two cucumbers
2-3 potatoes
Bunch of radishes
Dills, spring onions, parsleys
500 gr farmhouse milk sausage
One liter of kefir
Mustard
One lemon
Spices – sugar, salt, pepper

 

How to prepare this recipe
Marinade:

1. Wash and scrub the young beetroot under cold water and place them in a saucepan with water and bring to the boil.
2. As soon as water begins to boil, reduce the heat on the minimum to keep water at a simmer and leave it for another one hour until the beetroot is tender.
3. Once the beetroot is cooked, plunge it into a cold water bowl for 20 minutes, so the beet can preserve its colour and flavour.
4. Remove from cold water, cut off root tips & stems and remove the skins. Use four-sided box grater with thick, stamped holes for coarsely grated beets.
5. Combine all marinade ingredients - 1 tbsp salt, 2 tbsp’s sugar and one squeezed lemon – with beets and let soak for at least 2 hours.

Soup:

6. When the marinade is ready, chop the spring onions, dills and parsleys and add to the mix.
7. Chop up about 250 grams of milk sausage and add that as well to the mix.
8. Add 1 L of kefir (the one who looks like milk, tastes like yoghurt and is the most important ingredient) and mix thoroughly.
9. Place to boil the potatoes.
10. Boil the eggs, peel and chop them as well before adding.
11. The cucumber and radish also gets chopped into small pieces before being added.
12. Add some mustard as this brings a vitality and piquancy to the soup

Serve:

Serve it with a Latvian black rye bread with seeds and potatoes aside. Decorate with eggs and other vegetables.

Warnings:

Two days later my hands are still stained red :)

 

The story behind this recipe
When school is finally over, one thing is clear that the best place where to spend summer holidays is closer to nature, far away from the city's enormous hustle and stuffy air. I pack my pink backpack and go on a 3-hour bus ride to stay at my Grandma’s summerhouse – a wonderful place located in the middle of nowhere, between forests and meadows, somewhere in the east of Latvia.
Knowing before that today is going to be a very hot day, me and grandma are waking up early this morning, so we can do all the garden work on time. Her small house is surrounded by gardens full of vegetables, flowers and fruits. Everywhere some small plant is tucked, a lovely flower or delicious berry treat. She dedicates the fresh hours of the day to water each and every single plant of the garden, while I am looking for some ripe carrots. When the thermometer's column is exceeding 28 degrees and the only shadow in the garden is occupied by dog, we realise, that it’s time to hide ourselves inside the house. In this heat even appetite disappeared somewhere, but when grandma mentions the cold soup it’s difficult to resist. While grandma is taking care of beets and greens, I nicely cut all cucumbers and radishes as she asked. “The special ingredient of the soup is something really simple – it’s kefir and love mixed up with the most delicious stuff that could be found in the garden”, Grandma says. I take the biggest spoon and a huge bowl of the soup and sit down on a wooden porch outside. Nothing feels better then a cold soup on a hot summer day.
Even 10 years later, this bowl of cold grandma’s soup still tastes like summer, joy and freedom. It’s always nice to remember summers as a kid.. And it got me thinking - do kids still spend time at their Grandparents houses like we did? I was lucky enough to be a part of my grandmother’s life. She taught me about gardening and FOOD.. But mostly? She taught me about LIFE.