Okróshka

Okroshka is a cold Russian soup that can be made with any available crunchy summer veggies, herbs and eggs. All served with buttercream or kefir and a generous squeeze of lemon juice.  It is such a perfect dish for lunch on a blazing hot day.

Soups are the most popular lunch meals across the country, and okroshka is Russian favorite cold summer soup! It’s super healthy, cooling and nourishing.

The first appearance of okroshka soup on record was in the Nikolay Osipov book ‘The Old Russian Homemaker, Housekeeper and Cook’, back in 1790. The okroshka there is made with different kinds of fried meat, onion, fresh and pickled cucumbers and sour cream. Pickle juice, kvass or stchi (sauerkraut soup) was recommended as stock. Vinegar sometimes also showed up in those old recipes - which can be explained by fresh meat being somewhat of a delicacy that few could afford. Obtaining fresh meat in the summer was difficult (livestock would be slaughtered in the fall), so salted meat was the way to go. But it was often tough and not salted properly. That’s where vinegar came in. And it stayed that way until the 1830s, when meat finally became more affordable to a larger portion of the population.

In the mid 19th century, okroshka - believe it or not - even used to be a delicacy, one that could often be seen on dinner tables during official functions and high-society parties in the capital. One prominent recipe consisted of adding lamb, veal, corned beef, ham and smoked beef tongue. Others included fish and various sorts of mushrooms. Stchi or “high-quality kvass” were used for stock.