Rūgštynių Sriuba Recipe: Lithuanian Sorrel Soup

Sorrel soup with potatoes and egg

Rūgštynių sriuba is a sour soup named after sorrel. In this version, pork ribs make the broth, potatoes give it body, and hard-boiled eggs and sour cream are added at serving. Sorrel wilts quickly and changes from bright green to olive as it heats; that colour change is normal.

Documented in a Vilnius cookbook

The 1913 edition of Wincenta Zawadzka's Kucharka litewska contains recipe 31, Zupa ze szczawiu, on printed pages 16-17. It describes a beef broth, optionally enriched with smoked meat, and allows preserved sorrel in winter.

Zimową porą używa się do tej zupy szczaw marynowany.

Translation: In winter, preserved sorrel is used for this soup.

Zawadzka suggests poached eggs, called perduty. The pork, potato and hard-boiled-egg version below is therefore a related home preparation, not a transcription of her recipe. The book documents the broader regional tradition without assigning an exclusive national origin to the dish.

Keep the sorrel until the end

Cook the potatoes until tender before adding the leaves. Stir a little hot broth into the sour cream before mixing it into the soup off the heat, or serve the cream separately.

Source: Wincenta Zawadzka, Kucharka litewska, 11th edition, Vilnius, 1913, recipe 31, pp. 16-17.