Traditional borscht
8 servings
90 minutes
Do you know that the correct way to say is: "Pour" borscht? This time I tried so hard that my husband asked: "Where is the liquid?", although he loves ultra-thick borscht)) And in order to pour it, it must be thick and rich. But, as you know, there are as many borscht options as there are housewives, and from the type of meat to the amount of vegetables and the method of preparation. For example, in my poor student years, I cooked borscht on chicken legs, and nothing - delicious! Borscht is generally one of the cheapest soups, which can even be made vegetarian. The amount of vegetables can be any, depending on the size of the pan and, in fact, the vegetables themselves. For example, I always take the smallest head of cabbage that is in the store. You can not fry the vegetables at all and get a wonderful color and taste. In general, experiment, and everything will work out! The only thing you need to strive for is to make the color brighter and more beautiful. And I'm still trying.
1
Place the pork in cold water, bring to a boil, and cook for half an hour (in a pressure cooker, it will be fully cooked; in a pot on the stove, it should be too, but don't taste the meat until you cut it and ensure there's no blood).
- Pork: 1 kg
2
Remove the cooked or almost cooked meat from the broth, cool it down, and cut it into small pieces so that each portion has plenty of meat for everyone to try.
3
While the pork is boiling, peel, wash well, and cut the potatoes into small pieces of arbitrary size, placing them in a container of water to prevent darkening. Remove the dirty and torn outer leaves from the cabbage, then wash the head well. You can immediately shred or simply cut the cabbage into small long strips. These ingredients will be needed first, so it's better to finish with them right away.
- White cabbage: 1 piece
4
After removing the meat from the broth, bring it back to a boil and add pieces of pork and chopped potatoes to the boiling water, cooking until done.
- Potato: 300 g
5
While the potatoes are boiling, peel and wash the carrots, beets, and onions well (do not touch the garlic, it's for serving). Grate the carrots and beets separately on a coarse grater, and chop the onion finely. Heat a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil in a pan, but you can easily do without it, so I didn't include it in the ingredients. First, fry the onion, then add the carrots to the same pan, fry, and then add the beets, frying everything together. To keep the vegetables bright, add vinegar to the pan (I use red wine vinegar, so I don't have to deal with the Soviet kind that you have to cut the lid off with scissors, and also, with wine vinegar, the borscht becomes more sour and richer).
- Carrot: 2 pieces
- Beet: 2 pieces
- Sweet red onion: 2 pieces
- Red wine vinegar: 3 tablespoons
6
After the potatoes are boiled, add the cabbage to the pot and let it cook. Meanwhile, sauté the vegetables calmly. The cabbage will settle in the broth after about 10 minutes; then add the sautéed vegetables and stir well to evenly distribute the beautiful beet color. Lower the stove temperature and let it simmer on low heat. Add bay leaf and black pepper—ground or whole (I can't do without it, but tastes vary for everyone, so it's not on the list).
- Bay leaf: to taste
7
In 10 minutes, the borscht will be ready. Let it steep for another 30 minutes, then pour it into deep plates, serve with sour cream, black bread, grated garlic, and lard! (The last 3 ingredients are to taste, but I consider black bread essential).
- Sour cream: to taste
- Borodinsky bread: to taste
- Garlic: 1 clove
- Salted pork fat: 50 g