Borscht
Introduction
Today, during the cold winter day, we decided to prepare delicious soup which originated from Eastern Europe - borscht. Many of you may have heard of borscht and were curious about how it is prepared. Well you came to a right place. As you may have guessed, borscht gets its bright red color from beetroot, which is a star ingredient of this recipe. One thing you need to know about this dish - there are many varieties of borscht recipes and there is no right or wrong way to make it. For those who grew up eating borscht - we know that noone can make borscht better than their mom. Our borscht is made with beets, cabbage, carrots, potatoes, onions, and beef. Trust us when we say that this hearty and tangy soup will keep you warm and full during colder months. Oh and please, when you serve borsch don’t forget to add some sour cream on top!
Recipe
Ingredients:
15 cups of water (or fill your biggest pot)
2-2.5 lbs of beef (bone-in preferred)
2 medium sized beets
1 1/2 of medium onion '
2 medium sized carrots
3-4 medium sized potatoes
3 cloves of garlic
few peppercorns for broth
2 bay leaves
half of head of medium sized cabbage
1 tablespoon of tomato paste
2-3 tablespoons of olive oil
1/2 tablespoons of butter
some freshly squeezed lemon juice
some parsley and dill
sour cream
Instructions
Fill your favorite and largest pot with water and meat (we used bone-in chuck) and bring it to a boil.
Now after your water comes to a boil you have to choices: either skim the solids that come on top of the water or just drain the water and fill the pot with new water and bring it to boil again. Once the water comes to a boil you can add one medium onion and bay leaves to the broth for extra flavor. Let the water boil for an hour and a half on low-medium heat and in the meantime start on preparing vegetables.
Peel and shred the beets. Peel and shred the carrots. Thinly slice the cabbage. Peel and slice potatoes into cubes and place the potatoes in a bowl with water. Peel and finely chop the onion.
After about an hour and a half, remove the onion, peppercorn and bayleaf, taste and season the broth with salt. Add salt little by little until you find it satisfactory. Remember it’s always better to slightly under-salt the dish. Lower the heat. Remove the beef, slice it to your preferred size and place it back to the soup broth.
Now it’s time to cook our vegetables that we worked so hard on with all that shredding and slicing. Heat up a separate sautée pan and add some olive oil to it. Add remaining half of an onion and sautée until golden in color. Now add carrots and stir for 3 more minutes. Now add beets, minced garlic, tomato paste, butter, stir for another minute. Take half of cup of soup broth that has been simmering and add that broth to the sautée pan. Close the lid and simmer the vegetables for 15 minutes.
In the meantime, add the potatoes to the soup broth and boil for 10 minutes. After that, add your cabbage and boil it for 5 minutes.
It’s time to add our sautéed mixture to the soup broth, but before doing that - add a squeeze of lemon to the sautéed vegetables and add a squeeze of lemon to soup broth - the slight acidity will preserve the bright color of our borscht. Now your borscht is coming together. Taste it and readjust salt if needed. If you feel like it needs more acidity, you can either add a bit of tomato paste or another squeeze of lemon - choice!
Add some chopped parsley and dill, and turn off the heat. Let the soup rest for at least 20 minutes before serving. Serve with sour cream and enjoy!