Prior to finding Linda McC's recipe, my experience of borscht was mixed. When my mother first began her professional and academic projects in Russia, she tried out one of her colleague's recipes for borscht. A staple like chicken soup, borscht has many incarnations depending on whose kitchen you're in and where their influence is from. This borscht that she made was vinegar-riffic and pungent--too much for my teenage palate. However, once I went to Russia myself in 1996, my idea of borscht and it's potential was radically altered. Some borschts that I had were basically cabbage soups with a bit of beets, in a clear broth. The borscht of Veselka, as you may know, is thick and deep magenta, with beef mixed in with the beets.
My borscht has been called "liquid love" by many, and I often refer to it as my "wooing soup". If I aim to win your heart, I'll put all my best into making a fabulous borscht for you. But don't worry--if I feed you borscht it doesn't automatically mean I'm trying to romance you. I'm just trying to romance your taste buds.
Every batch is different, and really depends on the quality and flavor of the beets.
Here we go:
5 or 6 mid-to-large beets
1/2 head cabbage
1 lge potato
1 lge sweet potato
1 lge onion
2 or 3 carrots
1 lge tomato
olive oil
salt and pepper
fresh dill
butter (optional)
6 c of stock (veg or chix, doesn't matter)
1 tsp white vinegar
(If you want to use other root vegetables, go crazy. Just remember that beets and cabbage make up the bulk)
- peel and chop the beets, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, (other asst root vegs) into matchsticks. This requires quite a lot of elbow grease, and will leave you with pink hands. Be sure to wear an apron or unimportant clothing--beets will stain!
- tomatoes can be diced
- chop the onions roughly
- sweat them in the olive oil with a little salt and pepper
- add the other vegetables (this will be quite a mountain)
- stir the vegetables, trying to let them sautee a bit. add extra oil as necessary.
- cover the vegetables with broth, let simmer until vegetables are soft (~1/2 hour)
- turn down heat
- scoop out the solid material, puree in a food processor or blender
- return the puree to the broth
- add more broth or water to reach the desired consistency
- add salt and pepper to taste, plus 1 tsp white vinegar (if you dont have it it's ok)
- if you like, a pat of butter is always a good idea
- serve with fresh dill (many also enjoy sour cream with this)
Hot, warm, sweet, earthy and pink. It's liquid love.
2 comments:
This is the way to do it for sure. This recipe is really similar to mine the only difference being I almost always add parsley, a few bay leaves and about a half of green pepper. It's so good and I'll eat it every night until it's gone and it keeps getting better with age.
I follow the above recipe, with 2 minor alterations:
1) Add 1 clove of chopped garlic when cooking the onions.
2) Don't puree all of the soup. It looks nicer if you scoop out a couple of cupfuls of the cooked veg and set aside briefly. Then puree what is left in the pan before returning the veg that you removed.
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