On recent travels through central Alberta, we kept noticing Dill Pickle Soup as the “soup of the day” in many restaurants – Lacombe, Clive, Rocky Mountain House, Stony Plain. This made me curious since I had never seen a recipe for Dill Pickle Soup and I wondered about its origins? Was it an old recipe now revised or a recent trend like deep-fried dill pickles?
An online search claimed it was a traditional Polish recipe also known as zupa ogorkowa. I knew that Polish pickles were unique in that they were fermented (salt-brined) and not pickled in vinegar as we North Americans are accustomed. Besides dill pickle what are the other ingredients in this soup?
Online searches showed some variation in ingredient proportions, but most recipes had in common potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, and of course dill pickles and pickle juice. Most recipes emphasized using sour pickles (Polish style if possible) rather than vinegary ones. Thickening of the soup is achieved by making a roux of flour and butter or a mix of flour and water as in the Craft Ontario recipe. Other recipes suggest mashing some of the vegetables and thereby using the mashed potatoes as the thickener. Seasonings also differed letting the cook choose according to taste. Sour cream was usually the last ingredient to add or use as a garnish, and dill was also a common garnish or ingredient.
Judging from the information online, dill pickle soup has been popular for the past decade and considered an easy quick meal and a comfort food. If more nutrition is desired, cooked and shredded or chopped chicken can be added. Its popularity in Alberta is more apparent than in British Columbia where it is less common in restaurants. One Alberta restaurant that features Dill Pickle Soup as a regular menu item is Huckleberry’s in Wetaskiwin Alberta. Their menu reads:
Huck’s Classic Dill Pickle Soup
Cup … $5.99 Bowl … $7.99
But more often, Dill Pickle Soup is a soup of the day.
After searching online, I made a trip to our local Polish deli, Polonia Sausage at 5725 Vedder Road in Chilliwack to see if they carried the real thing. It was time to make and taste Dill Pickle Soup according to the recipes I found. At Polonia Sausage I was able to choose from several brands of brined pickles, and they also carried a dehydrated version that can be reconstituted by adding water and cooking for seven minutes. Using the brined pickles, I roughly followed the Kitchn recipe above. I found the brined pickles quite salty and so I did not add any salt, and I skipped the vinegar that was to be added at the end of cooking. I omitted the leeks because I didn’t have any on hand and used about one-half the fresh dill and added some dried. My partner who had tried a restaurant version in Alberta declared the result better than what he had sampled. I suspect it was the pickles that made the difference because it’s unlikely that all restaurants would seek out the brined brands that can be a little more costly than regular North American dill pickles. There is a lot of vegetable chopping required in making this soup and I found that took more time than the recipe suggests, so give yourself lots of time for preparation.
A friend suggested this would be a good soup to try as “soup season” approaches. Soup season is all year round in our home but if you are starting to locate some soup recipes to try this fall and winter, this is one worth trying.
