There are plenty soups that are very common in Poland, regardless the region you were born in. However, soups in Poland differ a lot from many served in various restaurants around Europe. These are not soft and mild creams but soups full of vegetables, potatoes, meat and other additions.

Krupnik is made of mixture of greengrocery, barley and meat. It is one of the soups that one can eat as a main dish (with addition of bread).

The recipe is very easy and even beginner cook can prepare in a very short time. The soup does not cost a lot (the most expensive ingredient is meat – but one does not need to add a lot of it). You can prepare also its vegetarian version, in case of having non-meat eaters among your guests.

INGREDIENTS:

• Water
• Various soup-greens (leek, carrot, savoy cabbage, celeriac)
• 0.5 kilo of meat
• 0.5 kilo of potatoes
• One glass of barley
• Two spoons of cream
• Salt
• Pepper
• Various spices (depending on your taste)
• A little bit of butter

Wash soup-greens and chop them into smaller pieces (leek can be chopped into circles while carrot and celeriac into squares or grated – what is even more typical for Krupnik soup). Fry them with butter in a bog pot. After fried soup-green start giving wonderful smell, pour hot water (with vegetable bouillon) into the pot. When the water starts to boil, add potatoes (chopped into squares). Add the end add barley and boil whole soup till all the ingredients become soft. Krupnik is ready to be served!

The above recipe is its vegetarian version (as I am vegetarian myself). Its unique smell and taste is especially due to soup-greens fried prior to adding water. Those who would like to have proper Krupnik (with meat) – as most of the Poles do – need to boil water with meat as the first step. Then add barley and soon after green-soups together with potatoes. Boil the soup till all the ingredients are soft.

One bowl of Krupnik soup will definitely make you full. It is a proper first dish or even the main dish on the table. It is surely better for cold Winter evenings than in Summer.