Borsht
Borsch is very well-known and wide-spread Russian soup. (Ukrainian as well and – frankly – I don’t know what its origin – Russia or Ukraine is. As soon as I know it, I definitely will tell you). Really, it is cabbage-and-beats soup, but if we try to include all of its necessary ingredients in the name, the last one will be something like this: cabbage-and-beats-and-tomatoes-and-onions-and-carrots-and….. So, it is much better if we stick simply on “borsch”.
Whatever its origin is, borsch belongs to Russia as scale to the fish, and I heard in one movie or show, as one young lady shouted to her boy friend: “You needed to marry Russian, so she’d make borsch to you!”
Anyway, it is borsch.
You’ll need:
| Cabbage Beats Carrots Onion Tomatoes (tomato paste) Parsley Dill Garlic Salt, pepper, chili pepper |
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I’ll describe today only one of borsch versions (there are many of them), the one I like the most and always do – vegetarian borsch. Though it could be done on the base of meat broth, or pork, or even chicken.
Grate beats, carrots on the shredder, chop onion finely, and sauté it in the deep skillet all together. Add some water, and add it while it cooks if necessary. It’ll take about 30-35 minutes.
Then add chopped parsley and dill (only the thick parts for now), and continue to cook.
Add tomato paste, more water, salt, pepper, chili pepper (very small amount – say, ½ of tea spoon), and chopped garlic at last. Cook for a few more minutes.
Meanwhile, boil water in a big pot. Cut potatoes and place them into the water, wait until boil again, lower the heat and let cook for about 5 minutes. Add cabbage. Put to boil again, lower the heat and cook for about 15 minutes. Actually, time of cooking depends on your taste – how crispy you’d like cabbage.
At last – add all the beats-onion-carrots mixture from the skillet, mix everything together, put to boil again and leave then on a very low heat for 10-15-20 minutes.
Serve with sourcream (absolute necessity!) and chopped greens and/or garlic – whatever you choose.
