Tsertsyukha in Belarusian language means “something grated”. Particularly, this refers to Grated Potato Soup. In our version, boiled with home fried sausage and served with special onion bread.
Dishes of grated potato are very popular in Belarusian cuisine:
– Babka (grated potato pudding with cracklings, relative of a Jewish kugel)
– Klyotski – zeppelins (oblong dumplings of grated potato stuffed with meat or mushrooms)
– and of course – famous draniki, or grated potato pancakes.
All of them were borrowed in mid-XIX century from German cuisine via Jewish inn-keepers. Thertsyukha soup is one liquid example of this class of dishes. It was popular only in some villages by the beginning of XXI century, largely forgotten by most Belarusians, but we decided to revive it. We prepare it only in late autumn and winter. Lavishly thick and nutritious soup is good to fill you up with energy in the cold evenings. But is hardly a kind of healthy food in warm period of the year.
The basic recipe, as it was recorded in the Zelva district, looks like this:
Ingredients: 10 – 15 (medium size) potatoes, 150 g salt pork, 1 onion, salt.
Peel the potatoes, grate, add salt to taste, stir well. Then slowly pour this mass, stirring with a spoon, into boiling water (in a 3 – 4-liter pan). On low heat, continuing to stir constantly, cook, after boiling, for about 15–20 minutes. Put in a bowl with a spoonful of finely chopped salted lard and onion fried in a pan. If necessary – add salt and pepper.
We cook this soup almost the same way as above. Only instead of fat we use smoked brisket. Also, – finely chopped champignons are fried together with onions. When cooking, we add black pepper and allspice and bay leaf. And when serving – butter and greens. And slices of fried homemade pork sausage.
you may also see the visual version of our recipe at our Youtube channel (in Russian):
