Kvas/ Leaven for Barszcz

Zakwas na Barszcz

If you plan to cook natural, healthy and delicious Polish beets Barszcz, for example for Polish traditional Christmas Eve, you need to prepare beets kvas/ leaven for Barszcz several days before. Kvas is actually a water from fermented beets.

From this amounts of ingredients you will get about 2 portions od kvas to borscht. I usually prepare more leaven. One portion I use for Barszcz and the rest I refrigerate and drink everyday half a cup of it. I love this taste, it is also very healthy drink. When you drink kvas, you get vitamins, minerals and probiotics. It’s so good to your immune.

Ingredients:

• 2 kg/4,4 lb of beets
• the whole garlic
• one carrot (optional)
• half of celery (optional)
• 5 grains (berries) allspice
• 6 bay leaves

Cut all vegetables into pieces (I usually dice them), cut garlic into halves (check the photo below). Place vegetables, allspice and bay leaves in the big jar (4 liters – 1 gallon) and fill up with salted warm water (1 tablespoon of salt for each liter of boiled and cooled water). You will use about 2 liters of water. Cover the jar with a lid, close it but not really tight.

Check zakwas each day, if there is a foam- take it out with a spoon. After 5 days strain beets, pour juice into bottles and store it in the fridge.

Your beets Kvas/ Leaven for Barszcz is ready!

You can use up fermented vegetables in soup or a salad, I will share some recipes soon.

To find out what to do next for Barszcz – check the link: Christmas Eve Barszcz .

If you liked my posts and tried my recipes, you can consider buying me a coffee. Or rather I should say: you can buy me a flour for Pierogi, cabbage for Gołąbki and beets for Barszcz:) This would help me to cook more and publish more delicious recipes for You. www.buymeacoffee.com/cookinpolish.

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