What she’d tell you
A soup made of pickles sounds like something invented to win an argument. Then you taste it, and you understand why every Polish household has a jar of them at the back of the fridge.
What you need
Written for 6. Change that in the app and the amounts follow.
Tick things off as you get them ready.
Continue to the method ↓
How it goes
Simmer the chicken thighs in the broth with the bay leaves and the roughly chopped carrot and celery for 25 minutes.
Meanwhile, grate the pickles on the coarse side of a box grater and braise them in the butter, covered, for 8–10 minutes.
Lift the chicken out, shred it, and add the cubed potato to the broth. Cook 20 minutes until tender.
Stir in the braised pickles, a few spoonfuls of the pickle brine from the jar, and the shredded chicken. Taste: it should be properly sour.
Put the sour cream in a bowl and stir a ladle of hot soup into it, then another. Only then pour it back into the pot, off the heat.
Add the dill, season, and do not let it boil again.
If you haven’t got it
Chicken Thighs
leave the meat out entirely and use vegetable broth: it is a fine vegetarian soup
Sour Cream
crème fraîche, which is less likely to split
Keeping it
Three days in the fridge.
Gently, and never to a boil once the cream is in. Freeze it before adding the cream if you want to keep it longer.
