Regarding borscht, you can paraphrase Lev Nikolayevich: “All the cutlets are alike - each tasty borscht is delicious in its own way.”
Indeed, borsch is a dish for which there is no universal recipe. Each housewife prepares it according to her only known rules and proportions: someone adds vinegar, and someone - sugar, someone cooks with tomato paste, and someone - only with homemade tomato juice, someone beets cut slices , and someone is rubbing it on a grater ... All these small details make the borscht of each housewife special and similar to other borscht only by the general principle of preparation and the main ingredients.
But if you have not yet picked up your only recipe, one of the variations of traditional Ukrainian borsch is offered.
Ingredients (for 6 servings):
- water - 2.5 l;
- meat - 200-300 g;
- medium potatoes - 3 pcs .;
- large beetroot - 1 pc .;
- small carrots - 1 pc .;
- small onion - 1 pc .;
- garlic - 2-3 teeth;
- white cabbage - 200 g;
- salt - 1 tbsp. l .;
- tomato sauce (ketchup) - 1-2 tbsp. l .;
- bay leaf - 1 pc .;
- black ground pepper;
- fresh or dried herbs (onion, dill, parsley).
Cooking
1. Meat for borsch can be used differently, but best of all - pork ribs or rooster meat.
Rinse it, add water, bring to a boil and drain the first broth along with the foam. Pour the new water and boil the broth in it on low heat until the meat is ready. If these are ribs - it is enough to boil the meat for one hour, and for home-made chicken it will take a couple of hours or two.
2. Peel and wash potatoes and carrots. Cut potatoes into large cubes, and carrots - into small cubes or circles.
3. Add them to the broth, and let the borscht along with the vegetables intensively bake for 10 minutes.
Meanwhile, clean the beets, grate on a coarse grater and fry on low heat in vegetable oil or on pork fat. Roasted beets give borsch more intense color.
4. Shred cabbage is not very thin.
5. Add the beets along with the cabbage into the borsch and reduce the fire after boiling - now it should boil slightly until the end of cooking.
10 minutes after that, put in a pan whole peeled onion, peeled garlic, bay leaf, tomato paste (or ketchup), salt and pepper borsch. When adding salt, keep in mind that immediately it will be all in water, but then part of it will take meat and vegetables, so by the end of cooking the dish will be less salty and, perhaps, it will need to be slightly salted.
This is the main part of the preparation is completed. All the ingredients are added and it remains to “sweat” the soup for about 30 minutes (leave to boil very very low over low heat).
Before serving, add chopped fresh herbs to the plates. Dried herbs should be put right in the pan at the end of cooking.
