Zacirka

Ingredients

The dough crumbs

• 200 gplain flour
• 1egg
• or 3 tablespoons water
• for the eggless version
• a pinch of salt

The soup

• 1.2 litreswhole milk
• or 800 ml milk and 400 ml water
• or meat or vegetable broth
• for the savoury version
• 1 teaspoonsalt
• or to taste
• 30 gbutter
• or a little pork fat

Sometimes added

• 1 tablespoonsugar
• for a sweeter milk version
• 1onion, chopped and fried
• for the savoury version
• a few crumbled dried mushrooms
• soaked
• black pepper
• chopped dill

To serve

• hot, in deep bowls
• a knob of butter on top
• rye bread
• or nothing at all

Directions

1. Flour and egg are rubbed between the palms. Put the flour in a wide shallow bowl. Add the pinch of salt to the pan. Do not beat the egg first at all. Break the yolk with your fingers. Use your palms and your fingertips. Work in small circular movements. Rub the flour and egg together.
2. Keep working across the whole bowl. The crumbs should be small and irregular. Break up any large lumps you find. Rub them between your fingers. Loose dry flour will remain in the bowl. Sieve the crumbs to separate it. Use a coarse sieve for that job. Keep that loose flour for another use.
3. Add the water very slowly indeed. Too much water gives a paste, not crumbs. Spread them on a tray or a cloth. Let them dry for twenty minutes. That is not essential but it helps. Pour the milk into a heavy pan. Add the salt into the cold milk. Stir it regularly from the base.
4. Use a heavy pan with a thick bottom. A thin pan scorches milk immediately. Sprinkle the crumbs in gradually. Stir constantly as you add them. Those clumps never break apart afterwards.
5. Keep stirring for the first minute. Give them about eight to ten minutes. Stir the pot from time to time. It should be soft with no floury centre. Add more hot milk if it is too thick. Simmer it longer if it is too thin. Stir in the butter off the heat. Add sugar if you want a sweet version. Taste it and adjust the salt now.
6. Use broth in place of the milk. Fry an onion in fat and add it. Add soaked dried mushrooms if you have them. Season it with plenty of black pepper. Scatter chopped dill over at the end. Serve it hot in deep warmed bowls. Add a knob of butter to each bowl.
7. Serve rye bread alongside if you like. The crumbs keep absorbing the liquid. Stir it constantly while reheating. Dried uncooked crumbs keep for weeks.

Technique

• This is a dish of genuine poverty — flour, an egg and some milk, requiring no meat, no vegetables, almost no equipment and no skill. The atlas records that plainly rather than dressing it up: peasant food described romantically usually flatters the writer rather than the people who ate it. It was eaten because there was little else, and it is also genuinely comforting. Both are true.
• The crumbs are rubbed, never rolled or cut. Break the egg into the flour without beating it and rub with your palms until you have irregular crumbs about the size of rice grains. That irregularity is characteristic.
• One egg will not moisten all the flour, and that is expected. Sieve the crumbs to separate the loose flour, or sprinkle a few drops of water and rub again.
• For the eggless version, add water a tablespoon at a time and no faster. Too much water gives a paste rather than crumbs, which is the main difficulty with it.
• Milk catches and burns easily and boils over with no warning, rising over the side in seconds. Use a heavy pan, watch it constantly, and stir from the base. Scorched milk taints the whole pot beyond rescue.
• Scatter the crumbs in gradually while stirring. Added all at once they clump, and those clumps never break apart.
• It should stay a loose soup rather than a porridge, and it thickens further off the heat, so err on the loose side.
• Drying the crumbs is not essential for one pot but it is what made them useful: fully dried, they keep for weeks, so a batch could be made and stored. That storage was the practical point of the technique.
• The same rubbed-crumb technique appears across a wide region — Polish zacierki, Ukrainian and Lithuanian versions, German Riebele, Italian pasta grattata. The atlas records the family and adjudicates no origin claim.

Substitutions

• Water replaces the egg for the older and poorer version; add it very slowly, a tablespoon at a time.
• Broth replaces milk entirely for the savoury version, with fried onion and dried mushrooms.
• A mixture of milk and water gives a lighter soup and is common where milk was short.
• Pork fat replaces butter in the savoury version.
• A little sugar turns the milk version into something closer to a sweet porridge, which is how children often had it.
• Dried crumbs made ahead keep for weeks and turn this into a very fast dish.

Variations

• Polish zacierki are essentially the same crumbs, cooked in milk or in broth.
• The savoury version with broth, fried onion and dried mushrooms is a quite different dish and is widely made.
• A sweeter milk version with sugar was and is given to children.
• Hungarian tarhonya is the dried and stored relative, closer to a small pasta.
• Some cooks add a beaten egg stirred through at the end, which enriches it considerably.
• Related rubbed-dough soups are made across Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and further west.

History

Small dough crumbs rubbed by hand and boiled in milk or broth, a peasant dish of the poorest households.

Frequently asked questions

What is Zacirka?

Zacirka is a soup & stew from Belarus: milk soup with pinched dough crumbs. Small dough crumbs rubbed by hand and boiled in milk or broth, a peasant dish of the poorest households.

How long does Zacirka take to make?

Zacirka takes 20 minutes of preparation and 25 minutes of cooking. The recipe makes serves 4. It is rated easy to make.

What can I substitute in Zacirka?

Yes, within limits. Water replaces the egg for the older and poorer version; add it very slowly, a tablespoon at a time. Broth replaces milk entirely for the savoury version, with fried onion and dried mushrooms. A mixture of milk and water gives a lighter soup and is common where milk was short. Pork fat replaces butter in the savoury version. A little sugar turns the milk version into something closer to a sweet porridge, which is how children often had it. Dried crumbs made ahead keep for weeks and turn this into a very fast dish.

What is the most important thing to get right in Zacirka?

Flour and egg are rubbed between the palms. Put the flour in a wide shallow bowl. Add the pinch of salt to the pan. Do not beat the egg first at all. Break the yolk with your fingers. Use your palms and your fingertips. Work in small circular movements. Rub the flour and egg together.