Spring Lenten soup from the Right-Bank Ukraine — eaten when sorrel (shchavel) leafs in late April and beets from the cellar have gone woody. Documented in the 1862 Moskovskie Vedomosti ethnographic survey of Poltava governorate as the Easter-week soup before the meat fast broke. The Polissia version adds nettle to the sorrel.
Kyiv's Ostannya Barykada restaurant serves a 1930s Cherkasy recipe with quail egg and wild-sorrel from the Trakhtemyriv reserve; chef Ivan Tregubov's 2018 version adds a smoked-fish stock base, a Polissia variant credited to ethnographer Maria Pohyrieva's 1903 fieldwork.
Cloudy yellow-green broth, sharp-sour from the sorrel oxalic acid, half a hard-boiled egg yolk-up in the bowl, smetana swirled in turning it pale jade. Soft potato cubes, dill fronds, scallion. Lighter than red borshch, eaten with rye, not pampushky.
Sorrel goes in only at the final 90 seconds — longer and the leaves turn olive-brown and the bright fresh-sour aroma cooks off into dishwater flatness. The egg is cooked separately and dropped in at service; cooking it in the broth muddies the green. No tomato, no beet, never.
Variations
Poltava style (potato-heavy, egg quartered); Polissia version with nettle and wild ramson (the most foraged); Kyiv urban version uses spinach when sorrel is out of season (purist heresy); Volyn riff adds smoked pike-perch stock; chef Klopotenko's 2020 cold-served summer riff at Inshyi.
On the Palate
Where Borshch Zelenyi sits in the Ukrainian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 6
How it's made
4 steps · 5 min active + 1 hour 45 min waiting
- 190 min
Simmer 500 g pork or chicken with 1 onion + bay leaves to make broth, 1.5 hr.
- 215 min
Strain broth; add 300 g sorrel leaves chopped + 2 cubed potatoes; simmer 15 min.
Watch outGive the sorrel just enough time to wilt and no more — cook it long and the leaves go olive-brown and the bright sour smell flattens out.
- 32 min
Whisk 2 eggs and stir into the warm soup — do not boil.
Watch outStir the beaten egg into soup that's hot but off the boil — let it boil and the egg curdles and the broth clouds up.
- 43 min
Serve with quartered hard-boiled egg, dill, dollop of smetana per bowl.
Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed
These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.
