← Nouns Cooking · Soup Pot

Ingredients

• 30 g Butter
• 1 Onion, finely chopped
• 2 Carrot, diced
• 2 celery sticks, diced
• 2 cloves Garlic, crushed
• 450 g Potato, peeled and cut into 1 cm cubes
• 1 l vegetable stock
• 3 allspice berries
• 1 Bay leaves
• 250 g sour dill pickles in brine (not sweet), coarsely grated
• 60 ml pickle brine from the jar
• 150 ml Sour cream
• 3 tbsp Dill, chopped
• Salt
• Black pepper

Method

1. Melt the butter in a large pot over medium heat. Cook the onion, carrot and celery for 6–8 min, until soft. Add the garlic for 1 minute.
2. Add the potatoes, stock, allspice and bay leaf. Bring to a boil and simmer for 10 min.
3. Stir in the grated pickles and simmer for 10 min more, until the potatoes are tender.
4. Turn the heat to low. Whisk the sour cream in a bowl with a ladle of the hot soup, then stir it back into the pot. This stops it curdling. Do not let the soup boil again.
5. Add the pickle brine a little at a time until the soup is as sour as you like, then season with pepper and salt (pickles are salty, so taste first). Stir in the dill and serve.

Tips

• Use brined, naturally fermented pickles rather than sweet vinegar ones; they give the proper sour, garlicky flavour.
• Freeze it before adding the sour cream, then stir the cream in when you reheat. Check the stock is gluten-free if you need it to be. Cool leftovers quickly, refrigerate within 2 hours and reheat until piping hot.

Sources

Written in our own words after cross-checking these recipes:

An Edible Mosaic Great British Chefs Polonist