Šaltibarščiai

The Pink Soup Recipe from lithuania

Here is the Pink Soup Story: The Baltic States have always been Countries I desperately wanted to go travel to. Photographs that I frequently saw in travel magazines over years made me dream of it more and more. Especially the Old Towns with their beautiful architecture and magnificent ocean of red roofs whose beauty arises especially during sunset time. No wonder that the ever romantic prettiness has always attracted me and the pictures kept sneaking into my thoughts.

Beautiful Cafés in the Old town of Vilnius

Now or never

This year I had decided to finally go. Now or never. Life is short! Dreams were calling and i didn’t take a vacation for ages. When I told my girlfriend Ellinor she said:

“ Yeah! Let’s do it. Maybe we can also go overland to Latvia and perhaps Russia, even Mongolia and finally back to India. We could take the Transiberian Railway and travel all the way to the Great Wall in China. What you think? It was a great chance to people about A Bowl of Compassion and organize charity dinners to raise money for the project and collect local recipes at the same time.
I was speechless! It took me a few seconds to believe what was going on. I smiled at her, knowing that this is going to be a trip of a lifetime.

Myself travelling around the world in 2008

The Couchsurfing Request

Approximately a week later I received an Email from a Couchsurfer. Her name was Dagne.
Dagne had requested for a couch at our Hostel the Charity Backpackers in India. We always keep one bed for Volunteers that can stay for free if they help out at our primary school. While I reserved a bed for Dagne I found out, that she was from Lithuania and currently for a 3 months trip in India. She was going to attend the Vipassana course in Bodhgaya. What an awesome coincidence I’ve thought. I told Dagne about my plans of going to Lithuania and finally overland to India. She was very happy about this heavenly given coincidence and offered me to get us in touch with her good friend Giedré who is living in Vilnius with her partner Martin. I loved it! The connection just happened so naturally. We gave each other a bed in different parts of the wolrd.
Dagne slept at our Hostel in Bodhgaya/India and in exchange Ellinor and I could find shelter in Vilnius! How awesome is that?

Dagne in Bodhgaya, she is the blond girl on the right

And here we were! Shortly after our arriving in Vilnius we found ourselves watching the sunset with the most hospitable locals you could ever imagine. Giedré and Martin brought a blanket, some red wine and a secretly homemade fish sandwich to sweeten up our first day in the Baltic States.

Meeting Dagne’s friends Giedre and martin in Vilnius

The cooking

The next day Giedré was expecting her old friends Gusté and Rita at their loft. They haven’t seen each other for ages, cause they all work in different parts of Europe. It was a late hot summer’s day, one of those where you can already sense autumn behind every corner.
The girls had the wonderful idea to make that traditional Lithuanian Šaltibarščiai – The Pink Soup, which was the ultimate idea for this sunny day in Vilnius. It is cool, it is fresh and it is healthy too. We have never eaten something like this before. Thank you so much for showing us this firework of flavors! Also we will never forget the nice conversation that we had. It was very inspiring and motivating! Big Hug guys!

Our host Giedré with her good friend Gusté

The Recipe

For a pot of Pink Soup you will need the following Ingredients

4 Lebanese Cucumbers, chopped
a bunch of fresh Dill , chopped
6 Spring onions, chopped
2 boiled eggs, diced
1 Glass beetroot, already cooked and chopped
1 liter Kefir
Salt
Pepper
boiled potatoes, as sidedish
1 Cup of remaining potato water ( Tip from the Grandmother of Giedres friend)
a squeeze of lime juice is optional

All ingredients get simply chopped up and added to a bowl or pot.

How to make the Pink Soup

This dish is so easy to make, you won’t believe it. Pink Soup takes a minimum of time but will give you the maximum of Flavor. It’s so super fresh and light and the perfect dish to cool you down on a hot summer day.

Step one: The first thing they did was chopping the vegetable .Cut all the greens in small bite pieces and add them to an empty pot. The boiled egg as well. Chuck it all in there. The dill as well. This already does smell incredible!