A Deliciously Tasty Schav Soup Recipe
Schav soup is known for its Eastern European roots, but you don’t have to be in Eastern Europe to enjoy this traditional soup. With ingredients like sorrel leaves, potatoes, and eggs, this soup is a great opportunity to bring flavors together to create delicious results. How do you make a deliciously tasty schav soup recipe? Read on to find out.
What is Schav Soup?
Schav soup, also known as sorrel soup, is a soup commonly found in Eastern Europe. There are many variations of this soup because each country or group of people has unique traditions regarding their Schav soup. Thus, this soup can take on a lot of nuanced flavors, and you have lots of opportunities to customize this soup to your needs. Want to add extra veggies or extra protein? Go for it! As long as you keep the spirit of the soup alive, you are good to go.
This soup is served in many cultures. Many Jewish people will have cultural connections to this soup. It is also known for being popular in countries like Russia, Lithuania, Belarus, Estonia, Ukraine, and Poland. Many families with roots in these cultures may have had this soup before, but it’s a great soup for anyone across cultures to try.
While some sorrel soup is served warm, many recipes are served cold. Thus, it will be up to you to determine how you want to serve this soup. If you’ve never had a cold soup before, I suggest trying it this way because I love trying new things and encouraging others to do the same. Nevertheless, it will hit the spot no matter how you serve, and you may be more comfortable starting with the warm version!
What is Sorrel?
Many people in the west may not be as familiar with sorrel, but it is a variety of leafy green plant that’s used as either a vegetable or a herb. You may hear this plant referred to as dock, and it is in the same family as rhubarb or buckwheat. It has a grassy and lemony flavor, which makes it great for soups. You would use it just as you would leafy herbs like basil, mint, or parsley.
There are several varieties of sorrel that have slightly different looks and tastes, but the most widely available sorrel is common sorrel, which has a robust flavor. Sheep sorrel is a wild variety of sorrel, and it grows wild. French sorrel, meanwhile, has a milder flavor than common sorrel. Finally, red-veined sorrel least resembles common sorrel because it doesn’t have as much tang as the other varieties.
A Tasty and Comforting Schav Soup Recipe
Let’s get started on this tasty schav soup, which will offer you delicious soup for a meal or as a side or appetizer. Whatever your intentions for this soup, you’re sure to be impressed with the unique flavors this packs in. Fortunately, while this soup may not use flavors you know as intimately, I know plenty of picky eaters who enjoy this soup, just as adventurous eaters do.
This recipe will serve 6, and it will take about an hour to make.
Ingredients
- 1 lbs sorrel, fresh
- 3 white potatoes, diced
- 1 yellow onion, minced finely
- 4 tablespoons butter
- 6 cups chicken stock or broth (or any stock/broth of your choice)
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 teaspoon ground white pepper (black is okay too)
- 1 lemon, juiced
- 3 beaten egg yolks (optional)
- 1 tablespoon sugar
- 1 cup sour cream, for garnish (optional)
Recipe
- Begin by washing the sorrel. You’ll want to rinse it with water several times. Pat dry and take off stems. You’ll then want to cut the leaves into thin ribbons.
- Heat butter in a saucepan on medium-high high heat. When the butter is melted, add the onions, and cook for around 3-5 minutes or until the onions start to become transparent.
- Add the sorrel. Cook for 10 minutes. The sorrel should be wilted.
- Add the potatoes, broth, salt, and pepper.
- Turn the heat down to medium and simmer for around 30 minutes.
- When the soup has simmered, add the sugar and stir it in well. When the sugar has dissolved, you can slowly add lemon juice. Taste as you add to make sure the tartness of the soup matches your taste.
- Take a few tablespoons of the broth and put it in a bowl with the beaten eggs. Stir together. Add the egg mixture into the soup, stirring it all together. Turn the stove back on to low heat, but do not let the mixture reach a boil. Cook for 10 minutes or so. Remove from heat.
- You can serve the soup hot or cold. When you serve, you can use dollops of sour cream as a garnish.
- Enjoy your soup!
Can I Save Schav Soup For Later?
Yes! There’s no reason why you can’t store this soup for later. It’s great because you can have this soup cold, so you just have to take it out of the fridge and wait a little bit to take the edge off the chill. This soup will store in the fridge for up to a week, but it will taste best within 3-5 days.
You can also freeze this soup, and it will taste best if you eat it within 3 months, but it will be safe to eat for several months longer. It’s great to make in large batches and then pull out when you want a quick meal that feels more decadent than a TV dinner.
Are There Good Substitutions for Sorrel?
This recipe does require you to use sorrel; however, because sorrel is not one of the most common ingredients in places like the United States, you may want to make a soup that uses all the same components but swaps out the sorrel. You won’t get an exact taste of sorrel from substitutes, but you can still get something that is fairly similar.
Adding lemon juice or lemon zest is a great way to get some of the flavors of sorrel. Just the lemon juice will do, but I prefer to use other leafy greens along with some lemon juice or zest to combine the leafy flavor with the tartness of the juice. You can use spinach, mustard green, or arugula. Rhubarb can also be a good swap in this recipe.
Is Schav Soup Good For You?
This soup is a great addition to a healthy diet. Schav uses many ingredients that are good for you, and you really can’t go wrong with a good bowl of soup! In fact, soup is known for its many health benefits. It’s a great way to jam-pack your diet with nutrients without feeling like getting those nutrients into your body is a chore.
Additionally, soup is a great way to feel satiated during meals. People who eat soup are 40% less likely to be overweight, based on research from PLOS ONE. This Penn State research also discovered that people who ate soup in a meal had a larger quantity of lower-calorie food, meaning they ate less by filling up on soup.
Sorrel is a powerful ingredient. It adds many of the same health benefits of leafy greens, while its fruit adds a nice citrusy flavor that you won’t be able to get through other similar plants. Healthline suggests that Sorrel is good for you because it is low in calories and has high levels of nutrients like fiber, Vitamins A and C, and magnesium. Thus, it is good for your bones, your heart, and can help regulate blood sugar.
