borscht

beet and cabbage soup

In my ongoing attempt to get rid of my food co-op beets, I made borscht. This is easy, and tastes pretty good. I had made a borscht last summer too, but I didn't remember which recipe I used, so I started my search afresh.

I found this great website about supporting Ukrainian orphans that looks like it is straight out of 1997 and has a whole section devoted to the world's best borscht. I explored their collection of recipes, and got a pretty good sense of what I wanted to do: Beets, cabbage, carrots, celery, onion, potato, parsley and dill. The ingredients varied from recipe to recipe, but those were the most common across the board.

I started off with the mire poix of carrots, celery and onion. I had saved the water that I boiled my syrian beets in, so I poured all that in after everything had started to brown. I would have added some chicken stock also, but I accidentally defrosted pesto sauce instead, and started to add that instead before I realized my mistake. Near disaster! Haha. Then I added half a head of cabbage, a small bunch of chopped parsley, some minced dill and a handful of small red diced potatoes. I let that all cook for a while and then I added three GIANT peeled and diced beets.

I cooked that all for long while more and then tried to mash it all up a bit since there wasn't much liquid. It was pretty chunky, but when I tasted it, it was good. It's common knowledge that soups are better after a day or two when the flavors have had a chance to meld, and borscht is no exception. Two days later, topped with dill flavored sour cream, thinly sliced radishes, scallions and fresh dill, it was a delicious meal.

I still think beets are kind of boring, but making them into a hearty borscht is not only tasty, but a cool refreshing lunch for the dog days of summer.


borscht topped with radishes, dill and scallions