Chilled beetroot soup (šaltibarščiai)

First of all, happy Saint Patrick’s day! Sadly we haven’t got even a touch of irish so I thought I will make something pink instead of green :D.
Chilled beetroot soup is a proper Lithuanian summer soup, because it tastes soooo refreshing. However I have been missing it and I thought to myself why to wait if I can make it now. It’s not like I need to wait till beetroot is in season. Therefore I recovered my old recipe that I adapted for cooking in UK (you know, with the ingredients available here) so I could make this soup straight away. I hope you like it too ;-). CHILLED BEETROOT SOUP serves 4

• 4 large potatoes
• 4 eggs
• 2 packs of vacuum packed cooked beetroot (600g in total), or you can cook it yourself if you wish (however, don’t forget to peal it)
• 1 cucumber
• 1/2 bunch spring onions
• 1 pack dill (30g)
• 500g yogurt (Yeo Valley is my favourite) or 900ml buttermilk (then don’t use milk or cold water)
• 300-400ml milk or cold water
• juice of 1/2 -1 lemon
• 1 tsp vegetable bouillon powder (optional)
• salt to taste

1. Boil potatoes (with the skin on) and eggs in separate pots.
2. Grate the beetroot into the large bowl or pot.
3. Finely chop cucumber, spring onion and dill and add into the pot with beetroot.4. Add yogurt into the beetroot mixture, stir gently to combine. The soup is very thick at this stage so thin it down with cold water or milk. Traditionally we use buttermilk, but the choice of it in UK is so small and besides I always seem to have yogurt in stock.
5. I like adding lemon juice into my soup just because we often use pickled beetroot (not pickled in vinegar) to make this soup and I feel that soup made with regular beetroot is missing some acidity. So add lemon juice carefully to your personal taste. If too sour then add some salt to balance it out.
6. Serve the soup with quartered  eggs on top and pealed potatoes on the side.Enjoy!
Rasa xoxo