🇷🇺 Russian Federation · Russia
BotvinyaRussian cold greens and kvass soup
A cold Russian summer soup of boiled, chopped greens (beet tops, sorrel, nettle) in kvass with cucumber, green onion and horseradish, served with boiled red fish on the side and crushed ice.
Origin and history
Znanie.Russia says botvinya has been known in Russian cooking since before Peter the Great and long belonged to the summer table. In the 19th century it was considered an aristocratic dish, and Shmelev describes it as a festive dish with red fish; the same article lists Pushkin and Gilyarovsky among the writers who mention it. Cost and labour pushed it out of everyday cooking, and Argumenty i Fakty says it was very popular before 1917 and is now made mostly by lovers of classic Russian cooking.
Make it at home
- Makes
- 6 servings
- Total time
- 1 h 30 min
- Hands-on
- 50 min
Ingredients
- 1 l4 cups homemade-style dark rye kvass, unsweetened; very cold
- 250 ml1 cup white sour kvass (okroshka kvass), or more of the rye kvass plus a little lemon
- 2 large bunches sorrel, about 300 g (10 oz), stemmed
- 1 large bunch young nettles, about 150 g (5 oz); or extra spinach
- 2 young beets with their tops, tops separated, beets peeled and grated
- 1.5 cucumbers, diced
- 1 cup chopped green onion
- 2 tbsp chopped dill, to taste
- 1 tbsp grated horseradish
- 1 tsp mustard
- 1/2 lemon, zest and juice
- 1 tsp sugar
- 1 tsp salt, plus more to taste
- 500 g1.1 lb red fish (salmon, trout or sturgeon), boiled, boned, in pieces
- 1 onion, for poaching the fish
- 1 bay leaf and 6 peppercorns, for poaching the fish
- 4 crayfish, boiled; optional
- crushed ice, to serve, in a separate cup
Method
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1. Rinse the nettles and sorrel, chop them and scald them with boiling water, then drain in a colander.
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2. Cook the grated beets in a small amount of water until soft, and boil the beet tops separately until tender; drain both.
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3. Chop the sorrel, nettles and beet tops finely, but do not purée them.
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4. Pound the green onion with the salt and the greens, then stir in the beets and beet tops, the dill and the diced cucumber.
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5. Poach the fish gently for a few minutes with the onion, bay leaf and peppercorns, then lift it out, remove the bones and cut it into small pieces.
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6. Mix the two kvasses. Grind the lemon zest with the sugar, stir in the mustard, horseradish, a little kvass and some lemon juice, and pour this dressing into the kvass.
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7. Combine the greens with the dressed kvass and chill for 30 minutes, then adjust salt, sugar and lemon.
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8. Serve the soup in bowls, the fish and crayfish on a plate and crushed ice in a cup; add ice to the soup as you eat.
Notes
- The proportions follow the botvinya printed in Argumenty i Fakty, which presents it after the culinary historian Pokhlyobkin; weights for the sorrel and nettle bunches, the dill and the onion for poaching are our estimates, as the article gives bunches and no weights. The greens are boiled and chopped fine, not blended, so the texture stays intact (some older recipes rub them through a sieve or purée them).
- The soup, fish and ice come to the table separately; the classic setting is a fork for the fish and two spoons, one for the soup and one for dropping ice in it. Serve with rye bread.
- The sources call for rye kvass, neither too sour nor sweet; bottled kvass is often sweet, so choose the driest and balance with lemon. A monastic version leaves out the fish and adds honey and horseradish, and a steeped (zaparnaya) version adds a sour starter of rye flour and kvass dregs. Without the fish it is the 'incomplete' botvinya, a light green cold soup.
- The greens are traditionally beet tops, sorrel and nettle, with spinach as a substitute (a quicker azbyka.ru version uses only beet tops and spinach, puréed, with mustard, cucumber and perch). Fish poaches in 2 to 3 minutes if salted or smoked and about 10 minutes if raw; the crayfish are optional.
- Okroshka is also cold and kvass-based, but botvinya is made with boiled greens and the fish is served on its own; it is more costly and more work than okroshka, so it is a dish for a summer holiday.
Adapted from Argumenty i Fakty: Pokhlyobkin on how to make okroshka and botvinya, Znanie.Russia: Botvinya, and Azbyka: Botvinya with fish, an old recipe.
At the festivals
No festival we list has printed it on a menu yet.