Borscht, hot:
Meat about 3 lbs.
Water -3 quarts
Onion finely chopped or diced – 1
Potato diced – 2-3
Carrots grated – 2-3
Beets grated – 1-2 (could be canned, but not pickled)
Cabbage I buy coleslaw salad – 1-2 cups, or great your own.
White beans, I use canned, you can use as much as whole can or about a half would be good.
1 tablespoon of ketchup or tomato sauce for coloring.
Secret ingredient (recipe to fallow). – 2-3 table spoons (I posted this recipe earlier in the thread, but here it is again, so you do not have to look for it.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Start by making good meat broth. Use whatever meat you like. Lately I’ve been using chicken. But pork or beef is definitely great. Short ribs are good. But in my opinion, the best part is cross cut shank meat with marrow bone. The reason for that is broth comes out with a hint of tartness. I do not know why it is. And that is exactly what you want in borscht. If you search for other recipes you’ll find that some of them use lemon juice, some use citric acid, also known as sour salt, or pickled beets, or sauerkraut, and then they have to add sugar to compensate...
Nonsense. All those things will only ruin natural taste of Borscht. If I use beef I cook it for a long time to make sure the meat is extremely soft, and practically melts in your moth so you do not have seat and chew the darn thing for half an hour. While meat is cooking prepare all the vegetables. You can use fresh or canned beets. If using fresh beets they will take an hour or so to cook. I cook the whole thing and then take the beats out, immerse in the cold water, grate and add them back almost at the end of the process.
I do not like onion, so I usually put it in early so it over cooks to the point that you can’t even see it. Adds great flavor. Cook potato, carrots, coleslaw, beans. Should take about half an hour or less.
Some people will tell you that I do not know what I’m doing or talking about. The true purists of an authentic Ukrainian Borscht will sauté their beets, onion and carrots in some fried pork fat, yum. Very unhealthy, I do not do it anymore.
So, I do not worry about them people anymore. Taste of my Borscht is very refine.
Now the secret ingredient. Indeed some people will add the same ingredients separately but I make this special concoction (I do not know what to call it in English, so please help me out somebody here). In fact I use it for many soups and other dishes, especially when I make spaghetti sauce.
Here it is:
10 sweet red bell peppers (any color is good, but not green)
10 hot peppers or go by weight use same amount (it could be any hot peppers you like, depending on how hot you like your food)
2-3 average parsnip roots or if you can get hold of parsley root; it is even better, use 4-6 of them as they usually much smaller.
3-4 heads of garlic
2 table spoons of salt (works as preservative)
Cut, remove seeds, wash, put everything thru meat grinder or, if using food processor make sure not to chop very fine.
Right now is a perfect time to make this mixture. There are so many fresh veggies, I make the whole recipe put in couple of jars and keep it in refrigerator for up to 6 month. It actually never last that long I use it up faster. You can scale the recipe down.
When Borscht is nearly ready add couple spoons of the mixture. Taste and re-season to taste. Hm, that sounds funny; probably I am spelling something wrong.
Serve hot with a spoon of sour cream and hearty bread. Russian will have a clove of garlic seating right next to the plate and they will keep bighting into it. Not sure about taste but very healthy.
