This is a winter soup recipe probably with an Eastern European history, but now found in many southern parts of the former Soviet Union. Historically, this soup recipe developed through using mostly pickled or preserved ingredients. The carrot, onion and garlic would have been fresh with perhaps a few hardy herbs in early spring, but the cucumbers, tomatoes and peppers would have been salted or marinated for winter and the meat used in the traditional version would have been salted or smoked. Sometimes sausage would be used. Yuk!
We, of course, are going to do a meat free version and I'm going to include fresh tomatoes and red pepper, because nowadays they can usually be found year round. Tomato paste will work just as well and if you don't have a red pepper, add a little extra paprika.
The quantities I give here will feed three or four people.
Ingredients
2 carrots
1 onion
1 large red pepper
3 tomatoes
1 cup of chopped salted or pickled cucumbers
3 or 4 cloves of garlic
A small handful of black olives
1 bay leaf
A few crushed black peppercorns
1 teaspoon of paprika
2 heaped teaspoons of flour
1 or 2 vegetable stock cubes
Olive oil
2 litres of water
A few sprigs of fresh herbs (spring onion, parsley and/or dill)
Sour cream for garnish
Chop all the vegetables finely. Heat the water and add the cucumber, tomato and bay leaf when it starts to boil. Fry the onion, carrot and pepper together until the onion becomes transparent. Add the garlic and flour and fry everything for a further few minutes. Add the contents of the frying pan to the soup pot along with the olives, paprika, black pepper and stock. Simmer for about half an hour.
Wait until the end of cooking time before deciding whether to add salt as a lot will come out of the olives, cucumbers and stock cubes. Add some chopped herbs at the last minute and serve the soup garnished with blobs of sour cream.