A sour soup built on fermented rye flour, with white sausage, smoked meat, garlic, marjoram and a halved hard-boiled egg.
What makes it żurek
Soured with zakwas, fermented rye.
Biała kiełbasa, the white sausage, and hard-boiled egg.
Garlic and marjoram.
Where it comes from
Its sourness comes from zakwas: rye flour and water left for several days to ferment, like a thin sourdough. Once a food of Lent and of poor households, it's now the soup of Easter, eaten at breakfast on Easter Sunday with the eggs and sausage blessed in church the day before.
Restaurants often serve it in a hollowed-out round loaf, the bread lid on the side.
How it varies
Barszcz biały
White borscht — much the same soup, soured with fermented wheat instead of rye.