Food / Borscht - Zurek / Bialy barszcz recipe [153]

Busia Kaminski (76 years old) was over for Christmas & my brother & I wanted the recipe for KWAS - We could not find a written recipe for mom's holiday tradition. So we immediately got out our cooking pot, filled it with water and added our ham bone. As mom added the ingredients we followed behind with our measuring cups and measuring spoons and came up with the following recipe to pass down to future generations -

ham bone (and any ham juice left from your baked ham)
in approx 16 cups of water
add 2 or 3 bay leaves
add 1 tsp peppercorns
carrots

Bring the above ingredients to a boil
add 2 cups of vinegar and 1 tsp salt - cook on medium heat for an hour

in a separate container - mix 1 egg yolk, 2 cups of milk / then add 2/3rd cup of flour
whisk together.
To this mixture add 2 to 4 cups of the hot broth - whisk together and then slowly add to the
pot
bring pot of soup to another boil and add salt and vinegar to taste

I found that the next best thing to homemade noodles are kluski noodles.

Boil all until meat is nice and tender. Remove meat and strain soup into another container. Cut meat away from bone and put back into soup. Add cooked noodles and serve.

KWAS
Definition: Polish for a sour starter made by fermenting bread and/or beets or other vegetables or fruits. It is used in soup making, especially barszcz or rye bread.

Pronunciation: KHVASS