Polish sorrel soup with egg and croutons
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| Alternative names | Green borscht, green shchi, green soup |
|---|---|
| Type | Soup |
| Region or state | Eastern and Northeastern Europe |
| Serving temperature | Hot or cold |
| Main ingredients | Waterorbroth, sorrel leaves, and salt |
Sorrel soup is made from waterorbroth, sorrel leaves, and salt.[1][2][3][4][5] Varieties of the same soup include spinach, garden orache, chard, nettle, and occasionally dandelion, goutweedorramsons, together with or instead of sorrel.[1][2][3][6][7][8] It is known in Ashkenazi Jewish,[4] Belarusian,[7] Estonian, Hungarian, Latvian,[9] Lithuanian, Romanian, Armenian, Polish,[5] Russian[1][3] and Ukrainian[6][8] cuisines. Its other English names, spelled variously schav, shchav, shav, or shtshav, are borrowed from the Yiddish language,[4] which in turn derives from Slavic languages, like for example Belarusian шчаўе, Russian and Ukrainian щавель, shchavel, Polish szczaw. The soup name comes ultimately from the Proto-Slavic ščаvĭ for sorrel.[citation needed] Due to its commonness as a soup in Eastern European cuisines, it is often called green borscht, as a cousin of the standard, reddish-purple beetroot borscht.[1][6][7][8] In Russia, where shchi (along with or rather than borscht) has been the staple soup, sorrel soup is also called green shchi.[10][11] In old Russian cookbooks it was called simply green soup.[2][3]
Sorrel soup usually includes further ingredients such as egg yolks or whole eggs (hard-boiled or scrambled), potatoes, carrots, parsley root, and rice.[1][3][12] A variety of Ukrainian green borscht also includes beetroot.[11] In Polish, Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Russian cuisines, sorrel soup may be prepared using any kind of broth instead of water.[1][3] It is usually garnished with smetana, an Eastern European variety of sour cream.[1][3] It may be served either hot or chilled.
Sorrel soup is characterized by its sour taste due to oxalic acid (called "sorrel acid" in Slavic languages) present in sorrel. The "sorrel-sour" taste may disappear when sour cream is added, as the oxalic acid reacts with calcium and casein. Some may refer to sorrel flavor as "tannic," as with spinach or walnuts.
