Milk (38 page)

Shell and if necessary devein the shrimp. Cut into coarse dice.

Peel and seed the cucumbers. Cut into medium dice (about ¾ inch), toss in a bowl with the salt, and drain in a colander for 20 to 30 minutes.

Mince the garlic very fine and place in a large nonreactive bowl with the sour cream, buttermilk, and sauerkraut juice. Whisk to combine thoroughly. Rinse the salted cucumbers under cold running water, squeeze as dry as possible, and stir into the buttermilk. Trim the scallions, chop fine, and add along with the reserved shrimp. Season with pepper to taste and a little salt if desired (it may need none). Refrigerate, covered, for 4 to 8 hours; I find that it gets harsh if kept longer than overnight.

When ready to serve, snip the dill into bits, chop the optional hard-boiled eggs, and scatter a little of each over every portion.

B
orscht” is what many American cooks will want to call this soup. But it couldn’t be more different from the sweet kinds that often represent the Russian
borshch
in American kitchens. It belongs to a family of cold soups, known in all countries of the
Northeastern Cow Belt, that are based on sour milk or cream and some other sour principle, usually sauerkraut or pickle brine or some version of the fermented drink called
kvas
in Russia,
kwas
in Poland. Beets are just one of the things that can go into them.

Poles are particularly dedicated to this kind of cold soup (“chłodnik” in Polish), which they make in an amazing spectrum of different guises. The original secrets of flavor are two: Chłodnik used to be made from sour whole milk with all the butterfat intact—in other words, something at least two or three times as creamy as the usual American cultured buttermilk. To come close, you must throw in a good slug of sour cream. In addition, Poles and most other Eastern Europeans have a summer-fall tradition of pickling nearly anything that can conceivably be pickled, from apples to tomatoes. Cooks thus regularly have (or used to have) several different kinds of brine on hand to add to chłodnik—or they might put in some kwas/kvas made from bread or beets. The resulting soups, often enriched with crunchy raw radishes or cucumbers, are liquid quasi-salads as gloriously varied and wonderfully refreshing as the gazpachos of Spain. Perhaps the most famous and certainly the most dramatic-looking of the Polish
chłodnik tribe is this classic version made from beets and beet greens. Poles attribute it to Lithuania, at one time a Polish possession (hence the name “Litewski”).

If you live near Polish, Russian, or Serbian communities with stores selling barrels of summer vegetables and fruits in brine, be sure to get some in season and add a little of the brine to the soup in lieu of sauerkraut juice. The color is most beautiful when a grated raw beet is mixed in at the end.

YIELD:
About 2 quarts (8 cups)

Cut off the beet tops at least half an inch above the root and rinse thoroughly. Scrub the beets well. Bring a large saucepan of water to a boil and add 3 or 4 of the beets along with the greens. Reduce the heat to medium-low, and cook, covered, until the beets are tender when probed with a knife, usually 25 to 40 minutes. Drain the beets and greens separately, and let cool.

Meanwhile, scrub the radishes and cucumbers and grate both on the coarse side of a box grater. Clean, trim, and mince the scallions. Mince the garlic, or crush it to a paste using a mortar and pestle.

Chop the drained beet greens fairly coarse. Peel the beets, and cut into fine slivers or dice.

Now combine the buttermilk, sour cream, ½ cup of the sauerkraut juice, and 2 teaspoons of the salt in a large bowl, whisking to a smooth consistency. Stir in all the vegetables. Grate the remaining raw beet on the fine side of a box grater and add the pulp and juice to the soup. Taste for seasoning and add more brine or salt as you prefer. Refrigerate, covered, at least 4 to 6 hours or overnight. Serve very cold, garnished with plenty of fresh dill and the optional chopped hard-boiled eggs.

T
his soupy sauce or saucelike soup from the Punjab and northern India is one of the many dishes caught up in the great Indian-American confusion about the difference between buttermilk and yogurt (see
this page
). Having first encountered it (in
Madhur Jaffrey’s
An Invitation to Indian Cooking
) made with cultured buttermilk, I’ve remained fond of that choice.

Kadhi
is usually made with a flotilla of small chickpea-flour dumpling-fritters called
pakodis
or
pakoras.
I think it is also good either by itself or with a medley of vegetables. Don’t hesitate to omit any of the suggested choices or add more.

YIELD:
About 8 servings

Put the chickpea flour in a bowl and mix to a paste with a little of the water. Add the rest of the water and the buttermilk and mix as smooth as possible.

Heat 2 tablespoons of the ghee until fragrant in a deep saucepan. Add the pinch of asafetida along with the fenugreek and mustard seeds. When the mustard seeds begin to pop, stir in the cumin seeds and nigella, then (in a few seconds) the curry leaves and dried peppers. Stir in the turmeric and let it sizzle a
few seconds. Add the thickened buttermilk, and stir to distribute everything. Let the soup simmer over very low heat, partly covered, for 30 to 35 minutes.

While the soup cooks, heat the remaining ghee in a deep skillet or wide saucepan. Add the potatoes and sauté, stirring, for a few minutes. Stir in the other vegetables and sauté until the onion is translucent. Add 1 cup water and cook, partly covered, over medium-low heat, stirring occasionally, until the vegetables are tender, about 20 to 25 minutes.

Transfer the vegetables to the buttermilk soup and stir to distribute everything evenly. Taste for seasoning; add salt and—if you think it can use a dash of acid—some sour whey or lime juice, a little at a time. Serve hot, garnished with cilantro. It’s lovely spooned over plain rice.

T
his dish, also anglicized as
mor kozhambu,
is the South Indian counterpart of
kadhi
. It, too, is often served with chickpea- or lentil-flour dumplings, but vegetables are just as usual. I use the same mixture as for kadhi, but one or two of the following would be more authentic: okra, plantains, small eggplants, tomatoes, taro, Indian bottle gourd, “ash gourd” (winter melon).

Because of the coconut-laced mixture of ground seasonings and the smaller amount of starch, the “soup” will be thinner and quite different in flavor.

YIELD:
6 servings

Prepare and cook the vegetables as directed for kadhi. Meanwhile, soak both kinds of dal in a small bowl of water for 30 to 40 minutes. Drain well and put in a blender or food processor with the hot peppers, ginger, cumin seeds, coriander seeds, grated coconut, asafetida, and turmeric. Process to a paste, adding water if necessary to help the grinding. Mix the paste into the buttermilk.

Heat the ghee in a saucepan until fragrant. Add the mustard seeds and cook until they start to pop. Add the curry leaves and dried red peppers. Pour the buttermilk mixture into the pan, and cook over low heat, stirring, just until heated through. (It will curdle if allowed to boil.) Stir in the cooked vegetables, let heat through, and serve at once. This also is perfect with rice.

C
old fruit soups, among the most refreshing of summer dishes, flourish vigorously in eastern and northeastern Europe. They fall into several families—starch-bound, creamy, or based on sour milk. This version with blueberries is a nontraditional composite of the latter two approaches that I found long ago in
The Berry Cookbook
by
Barbara R. Fried. The original called for two cups of sour cream. I now find this too heavy and replace it with part buttermilk. Vary the proportions of sugar, sour cream, buttermilk, and wine according to your preference and the flavor of the berries.

Americans have great difficulty figuring out just where to fit fruit soups into a meal. I think they make excellent first courses for a summer lunch menu featuring a light main-dish salad or vegetarian grain dish. They also win converts as dessert, accompanied by crackers or plain, not-very-sweet cookies.

YIELD:
About 6 cups (6 servings)

Put the berries in a nonreactive saucepan with 2 cups water and the sugar, cinnamon stick, and lemon. Bring to a boil and simmer, uncovered, for about 10 minutes or until the berries are cooked; add the wine during the last minute or two. Pour through a mesh sieve into a bowl, pushing with a spoon to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard the solids. Let cool to room temperature. Whisk in the sour cream until smooth. Add the buttermilk, a little at a time, until it is thinned to your taste. Taste for sweetness and acidity, adding a little sugar (dissolved in water for easier mixing) or lemon juice if desired. Chill in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours before serving.

VARIATION:
During the brief summer season of sour cherries, I sometimes turn this into a
cold cherry soup very inauthentically based on the celebrated
Hungarian
meggykesköce
or
meggyleves.
Use 2 pints (about 1½ pounds) fresh sour (
not
sweet!) cherries, ¾ cup sugar or to taste, 3 inches of cinnamon stick, the juice of 1 large lemon, a dash of red wine, a dash of almond extract (bitter almond, if you can find it), 1 cup sour cream, and a little heavy or light cream. (Hungarians mix the sour cream with flour to prevent curdling and stir it into the hot soup, but I prefer it flourless.) Pit the cherries, saving a handful to add at the end; place the rest and their juice in a saucepan with 3 cups water, the ¾ cup sugar, and the cinnamon stick. Bring to a boil and gently simmer, uncovered, until the cherries are very soft, 15 to 20 minutes. Remove the pan from the heat and stir in the lemon juice, wine, and almond extract. Fish out and discard the cinnamon stick; puree the soup in a blender or food processor. Pour it into a bowl and let cool to room temperature. Whisk in the sour cream until smooth. Taste for the balance of sugar, acidity, and creaminess, and add a little sugar (dissolved in water for easier mixing), lemon juice, or sweet cream until you like the result. Add the reserved pitted cherries and chill in the refrigerator for 2 to 3 hours before serving.