Borscht is one of the most popular first courses in our country. Every housewife should be able to cook delicious, rich red borscht. No man can resist this dish! There are many options for preparing borscht, but all of them are united by the main feature of borscht - it is a bright red color (not raspberry, like beetroot) and a special sweet and sour taste.
Classic Ukrainian borscht is cooked in a strong meat broth. The longer you cook, the richer and more flavorful the soup will be. On average, cooking takes at least two hours. To make the color more saturated, you can sprinkle the beets with lemon juice, or boil them separately, unpeeled, adding 1 tbsp to the water. a spoonful of vinegar. The ingredients are for a 4 liter pan.
Ingredients for cooking:
- Beef - 1 kg, on the bone;
- Potatoes - 3-4 pcs;
- Cabbage - 300 g;
- Carrots - 2 pcs;
- Beets - 3 pcs;
- Onion - 1 piece;
- Tomato paste - 3 tbsp;
- Vinegar - 1 tsp;
- Bay leaf - 3 pcs;
- Garlic - 3 cloves;
- Vegetable oil - optional;
- Salt, pepper - to taste;
- Greens - to taste;
- Sour cream - to taste;
Preparation steps:
- Wash the meat, add water, cook for 1.5 hours (periodically removing the foam).
- In the meantime, prepare the ingredients. Peel the beets and cut into cubes (I use a special attachment in a blender for this).
- Chop the onion. Peel the carrots and grate them. Shred the cabbage.
- Fry the beets in vegetable oil for 3-5 minutes.
- Add tomato paste and vinegar, simmer for about 7 minutes. Sometimes the paste is very thick, in which case I dilute it with water.
- In another pan (or wash this one), fry the onion for 3 minutes.
- Then add carrots and fry everything together until soft.
- When the meat is cooked, remove it and cut into pieces. Strain the broth and put the chopped meat in it, bring to a boil.
- Now peel the potatoes, cut into cubes and put in boiling broth, add salt.
- When the broth boils, add cabbage and cook for 7 minutes.
- Add beets, cook for 10 minutes. Then add onions and carrots, cook for 3 minutes.
- Add bay leaf and garlic through a garlic press. Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary. Let it brew for 15 minutes. Serve with sour cream and herbs!
For the recipe with photos, see below.
Today we have a classic dish of Russian and Ukrainian cuisine on our menu - rich red borscht with beets. Yummy too! Each housewife has her own secrets for preparing delicious borscht. So, I’m revealing my secrets. I described all the intricacies of the process of preparing borscht, so the post turned out to be very voluminous. But my lyrical digressions and step-by-step photographs should brighten up the reading process
Delicious borscht recipe quite simple, but there are some subtleties, without which, of course, it will turn out to be quite edible, but not so tasty! Although the borscht recipe is simple, the cooking process itself is quite labor-intensive. It is better if you are helped in the kitchen by your beloved husband or children, sister, brother, girlfriend or friend
Yes, you can cook borscht using different broth bases - pork or beef ribs, chicken, any soup set. But I prefer to cook borscht from chicken soup ( not to be confused with broiler chicken!) Usually soup chickens are much less meaty than broiler chickens, but the broth from such chickens is excellent! I will describe the intricacies of preparing the broth below. And here is a set of products necessary for borscht:
- ½ soup chicken (this is chicken, not broiler chicken) or pre-cooked broth;
- white cabbage, about a third of an average head of cabbage;
- potatoes, 3-5 medium pieces;
- onion 1 head;
- 1 medium-sized carrot and the same beets;
- a couple of tomatoes or tomato paste (2 tablespoons);
- vegetable oil for frying;
- 2-3 cloves of garlic, salt and spices to taste.
Cooking golden broth
First of all, you need to cook the broth. Since we will cook it from soup chicken, and it is known to have rather tough meat, we will cook it until the meat softens. About 1.5 hours. Wash frozen or chilled chicken under the tap. Place half the chicken in a 4.5 liter saucepan and fill with cold water. We put it on fire. Once the water in the pan has boiled for 5 minutes, turn off the heat. Remove the pan from the stove and add the chicken. And now, attention, the first secret of delicious borscht: We pour the water out of the pan; we won’t need it anymore. Rinse the chicken a second time and place it in the pan.
Fill with cold water again and put on maximum heat. When the water boils again, the fire can be reduced. Now it remains to cook our chicken for about an hour over low heat. After an hour, turn off the fire. We catch the chicken and put it in a separate plate. When it cools down a little, the meat needs to be separated from the bones and cut into pieces. Strain the finished broth through a fine sieve. Don't be alarmed that the process of cooking the broth is so long. The result will please you! Golden and rich broth! This way you can cook broth from any meat.
Preparing vegetables
Now that the broth is ready, you can start with the vegetables. And this is where you will need the help of your favorite assistants. Decide for yourself who to delegate the responsible mission of chopping cabbage and peeling potatoes. Then we cut the potatoes into large pieces. First add the cabbage to the broth and place the pan on maximum heat.
When my mother prepares borscht, she puts in the potatoes first, and then the cabbage. I know that many people do this. This is how anyone likes it. I like borscht so that the potatoes are not too boiled, and the cabbage, on the contrary, is softer. See for yourself what to put in first, potatoes or cabbage
As soon as the broth with cabbage boils, reduce the heat to medium and add the chopped potatoes.
Preparing frying for delicious borscht
On your own or with the hands of tireless helpers, finely chop the onions. Place a frying pan with vegetable oil on low heat and add the onion. While the onions are fried until nicely golden, let's start with the carrots. It needs to be peeled and grated on a coarse grater. Add to slightly golden onions.
Beets, like carrots, are peeled and chopped. You can grate the beets or cut them into thin strips. This is what you like. Add beets to carrots and onions.
One of the main components of delicious borscht is tomato paste or tomatoes. If it's summer, then it would be a sin not to use fresh tomatoes. When it’s far from summer outside, I prefer to put natural tomato paste (without starch and other chemical additives, made according to GOST) into the borscht. Add a couple of tablespoons of tomato paste to the fried vegetables in the pan.
And now, attention, the second secret of delicious borscht: To make the borscht a bright red color, you need to add a teaspoon of 6% acetic acid or a tablespoon of lemon juice to the pan with beets and other vegetables. The acid will prevent the red pigments of beets and tomatoes from being destroyed by high temperatures.
The last stage of preparing delicious borscht
To the vegetables that have been mashed and gently simmering in a pan, add our frying from the frying pan and chopped chicken meat (which was separated from the chicken after preparing the broth).
Let all the ingredients of the borscht simmer together for about five minutes and turn off the heat. Now you can salt our borscht and add spices to taste. I usually put a mixture of dry ground peppers - white, allspice and paprika. And now, attention, the third secret of delicious borscht: add finely chopped garlic at the very end of the borscht cooking process. Stir, take a sample and close the lid.
I usually let the borscht rest and soak in the garlic aroma for 20-30 minutes under a closed lid. After this time limit has passed, you can set the table and invite family helpers for dinner or lunch. Serve delicious borscht with fresh country sour cream! Delicious rich red borscht will not leave anyone indifferent! Bon appetit, dear readers.
And if your appetite is not satisfied with borscht alone, then for the second course I offer an excellent dish of classic Russian cuisine -
Borscht is a very mysterious and unusual dish, the methods of preparation of which are still debated. In different Slavic countries, borscht is cooked in its own way - with sausages, smoked meats, fish, horseradish, zucchini, beans and even apples. Every family has its own secrets of delicious borscht, which are passed down from generation to generation, but one thing remains unchanged - the love for this amazingly tasty dish, which is impossible to resist. Small children also love it, so cookbooks for newborns contain tips and recommendations for preparing this soup for infants. Now borscht has become almost an international dish, and if you want to please your family with borscht, choose any recipe - Ukrainian with pampushki, Moldavian with chicken, Starolithian with mushrooms and kohlrabi, Polish with bread kvass or Siberian with meatballs. Borscht has always been a symbol of home warmth and comfort, so it is important that it be tasty and aromatic.
Borscht starts with broth
Borscht is usually cooked in a strong meat broth made from good beef, pork or chicken, and if you decide to use beef, use brisket as it is softer and juicier. Some housewives add lamb bones to the broth to make the soup more rich, others cook borscht with duck, goose and rabbit, others make do with minced meat and stew, and some manage to cook a vegetarian version of real Ukrainian borscht. If you are making meat broth, simmer it for as long as possible to create a richer broth. Boil the bones for 5–6 hours, and the meat for about 2.5 hours, just remember to skim off the foam. During the cooking process, you can add an onion, carrots, celery and a bunch of herbs to the meat to enrich the taste of the broth. After cooking is complete, the vegetables are removed from the pan, the broth is filtered, the meat is separated from the bones, cut into pieces and added to the broth, sometimes with ham, sausages and homemade sausage.
How to cook delicious red borscht
After the broth has been cooked, it’s time to add beets to it - it is the presence of beets that distinguishes real borscht from other first courses. An exception is green borscht, which can be prepared with or without beets, with the addition of sorrel, spinach, nettles and wild garlic.
Raw finely chopped beets can be added to the broth long before the meat is ready, or, by boiling it in the peel and cutting into pieces, add it to the soup at any stage of cooking borscht. You can put half a teaspoon of sugar in a saucepan along with the beets for a pleasant sweetness. Boiled beets are also stewed with carrots, onions, tomatoes or tomato paste - a delicious dressing is obtained. You can use pickled or pickled beets, beet brine or tops. Czech housewives let the beets ferment a little in warm water, and in the villages the beets are infused with kvass. To enhance the red color, add a little lemon juice or beet extract to the borscht, which is obtained after boiled or raw beets are passed through a juicer. However, for this purpose you can add beetroot infusion to the soup. There is a rule - you can’t spoil borscht with beets!
Tricks with vegetables when cooking borscht
If chopped onions are added to the broth immediately after the beets, by the end of cooking the borscht it will be so boiled that it will be invisible in the soup, but will give it a piquant taste and aroma. The carrots are introduced into the broth a little later, cut into strips, and then the potatoes are sent into the pan - in this case, it is better to put a couple of tubers in the soup whole. Carrots and onions are added to borscht either raw or with preliminary stewing or frying, and whole boiled potatoes can be mashed or additionally added mashed potatoes to the liquid to make the borscht thicker.
At the end of cooking, you can take care of the cabbage by finely chopping it and adding it to the borscht, although some housewives add cabbage immediately after the beets. Additionally, you can add zucchini, fresh or canned beans, bell peppers, apples, pea pods, turnips and corn to the borscht - the choice of product depends on the recipe and the taste of the eater. Do not neglect spices, use dried dill, parsley, roots, garlic, black pepper, cilantro, marjoram and fresh ginger. And the finishing touches are tomato paste added directly to the pan with borscht or tomatoes chopped in a blender with the skins removed.
Secrets of cooking borscht with frying
Roasting makes it aromatic, rich, and bright, since fried vegetables have a more pleasant taste. Frying is simple to prepare - carrots and onions are fried until golden brown in lard or oil, and then tomato paste or fresh tomatoes are added to the pan. You can first fry the onion with a small amount of flour until it becomes creamy, and only then add chopped carrots, bell peppers and boiled beets. During the process of frying vegetables, you can and should add water so that the vegetable mixture does not burn; at this stage, many people add vinegar or lemon juice to the vegetables; for piquancy, you can add sugar and garlic.
Modern culinary traditions are aimed at simplifying the process of preparing dishes as much as possible, and many housewives are mastering recipes for how to cook borscht in a slow cooker in order to feed their family delicious food in record time. But sometimes you want to devote the whole day to preparing dinner and slowly cook the broth, chop and fry vegetables, experiment with products, choose aromatic spices and let the borscht brew for half an hour, as it should be. Don't be surprised if the saucepan is empty by the end of the weekend, and don't skimp on sour cream for dressing. And you can serve this miracle not only with donuts, but also with any delicious bread. In the old days they knew that if there is borscht in the house, the household will not rest until it is eaten. As the people said, “where there is borscht, look for us there.”
– a national dish of Russian cuisine, which is a hot first course of meat and vegetables. Usually it has a rich red color, but many housewives sometimes have a problem - the cooked soup quickly fades and becomes pale. Today we will tell you how to deliciously cook bright red borscht.
How to cook delicious red borscht?
Ingredients:
- pork – 300 g;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- beets – 1 pc.;
- carrots – 1 pc.;
- potatoes – 4 pcs.;
- white cabbage – 400 g;
- fresh herbs;
- sour cream - for serving;
- spices.
Preparation
We process the meat, wash it thoroughly, put it in a saucepan, fill it with water and cook for about an hour until half cooked, adding salt to taste. Meanwhile, we prepare the vegetables: wash and peel them. When the pork is half ready, add the potatoes cut into strips and finely shredded cabbage.
After this, put a frying pan on the fire, warm it up, pour in vegetable oil and lay out the onion, chopped into half rings, chopped carrots, beets, chopped pepper and parsley. Simmer everything for 5-7 minutes, and then put the roast in a pan. Cover with a lid, reduce heat and cook the borscht for about 15 minutes. Then let it brew, pour it into plates, season with sour cream and serve.
How to cook bright red borscht?
Ingredients:
- pork tenderloin – 500 g;
- white cabbage - 1 fork;
- carrots – 3 pcs.;
- green bell pepper – 3 pcs.;
- red tomatoes – 4 pcs.;
- garlic – 3 cloves;
- lard – 150 g;
- beets – 1 pc.;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- potatoes – 400 g;
- spices.
Preparation
We process the vegetables, and pre-soak the meat overnight if possible. Then we put it in a saucepan, fill it with water and put it on the fire. When the water boils, remove the scale, reduce the heat, cover with a lid and proceed to preparing the frying. Finely chop the lard and onion, and finely chop the beets and carrots.
Next, put it in a frying pan and, when it starts to show fat, throw in the onion and sauté it until it smells characteristic. Then add beets, carrots, add a little broth, add grated tomatoes and add a little sugar. When the meat is almost ready, take it out and cut it into cubes. We also chop the cabbage and chop the pepper into cubes. Next, return the meat with cabbage, peppers and potatoes to the pan and simmer over low heat until the vegetables are soft.
At the end of cooking, add the frying mixture to the borscht, stir and let it boil. Then add chopped dill and garlic, mix, taste for salt and leave to steep for about a day. The next day, we pour the bright red soup into bowls and proudly serve it to our family.
How to cook red borscht with chicken?
Ingredients:
- chicken – 600 g;
- beets – 1 pc.;
- potatoes – 5 pcs.;
- beans – 150 g;
- cabbage – 300 g;
- onion – 1 pc.;
- tomato paste – 1 tbsp. spoon;
- bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
- garlic – 2 cloves;
- spices;
- vegetable oil – 4 tbsp. spoons.
Preparation
First, boil the beans until fully cooked. In another pan, cook the chicken. We process potatoes, onions and carrots and cut them into any shape. After this, throw the vegetables into the meat broth. We clean the beets, grate them and simmer for 5-7 minutes in vegetable oil.
Then add tomato paste to it and mix properly. Finely chop the cabbage and squeeze the juice out of it with your hands. Peel the garlic, chop it and throw it into the pan with the meat, laying out the beans, cabbage and beets in turn. Season with spices, cover the soup with a lid, let it simmer for 10 minutes, season with chopped herbs and remove from the stove.
Before you cook the most delicious borscht, you should know the basic subtleties of proper preparation of the first dish of this type. Let's start with the necessary set of products.
- What is needed for borscht
- Classic Ukrainian borscht
- Meatless borscht with beans
What is needed for borscht
The traditional set for any type of treat of this category remains:Beet;
cabbage;
onion;
carrot;
strong vegetable or meat broth;
tomato paste or juice;
fresh or dried herbs;
fragrant spices.
According to desire and taste, some housewives like to add various flavoring additives and other products when cooking borscht:
Fresh garlic, crushed into a paste;
vinegar;
sugar;
prunes;
mushrooms;
beans of various varieties.
Advice: legumes should be added to the dish only in a pre-boiled form, since all types of beans cook for a very long time, preferably with preliminary soaking overnight.
How long to cook cabbage for borscht
It all depends on the type of vegetable. So, early young varieties are cooked instantly and therefore you need to add it at the very end. If you plan to add mid-season and late varieties of vegetables to the dish, you will have to cook cabbage shavings for 2 to 12 minutes - it all depends on everyone’s taste preferences. Some people like it if the plant crunches slightly when tasting, while others prefer well-cooked vegetables.
Which borscht tastes better – lean or with meat?
Traditionally, this type of first course is prepared in meat broth. At the same time, the protein supplement must contain bones - their structure contains substances that give the finished soup a special taste. If vegetarianism has become the main lifestyle, you shouldn’t give up full-fledged borscht. There are many recipes for lean seasoning soups that have a rich taste and can fill you up no worse than their meat counterpart.
Advice: you only need to put chicken, pork or beef on the bone in cold water - this will help fill the broth with a full palette of all flavor combinations.
Do I need to stew beets separately?
Here again, it all depends on taste preferences. If the pronounced taste of the root vegetable has its supporters in your family, you should simmer the vegetable cut into thin strips with a small amount of water and sugar separately until half cooked. Beets always take longer to cook than other ingredients; this trick will help bring them to an “al dente” state. That is, all vegetables will have the same degree of readiness.
If you want to preserve the color of potatoes in a red dressing soup, simmer the beets along with fried onions and carrots over low heat and only then add tomato paste and vinegar. In this case, it is better to grate the root vegetable on a fine grater.
Things to remember: in an acidic environment, all products take longer to cook, so the dish should be brought to a state of readiness immediately before adding citric acid, tomato paste or vinegar.
Several recipes for the most delicious borscht
There are a great many options for preparing the first dish, which is popular throughout the post-Soviet space. At the same time, every home has little tricks that make its own method of using products unique. We recommend several proven recipes with which even inexperienced housewives are guaranteed to be able to prepare excellent borscht.Classic Ukrainian borscht
A traditional dish that does not have clear boundaries of belonging to the national cuisine of a particular Slavic people.
Ingredients:
5 liters of purified or drinking water;
700 g of meat on the bone (beef or pork);
white cabbage - the amount depends on your own preference;
4 medium potatoes;
1 small beet;
2 medium-sized onions;
2 small carrots;
2 tbsp. l. tomato paste;
fresh tomatoes and bell peppers - to taste and desire;
1 clove of fresh garlic;
a bunch of your favorite fresh herbs;
ground black pepper, table salt and bay leaf - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Rinse the meat, add cold water and place on high heat with a lid.
2. As soon as it boils, reduce the heat to low and skim off the foam with a slotted spoon.
3. Cook until done; 10 minutes before adding vegetables, add salt to the finished broth to taste.
4. While the meat is cooking, peel and chop all the vegetables: potatoes into cubes, onions into small pieces, root vegetables and cabbage into thin strips.
5. Remove the finished pork or beef from the broth and cut into portions.
6. Add potatoes to the broth with meat and cook until tender.
7. While the potatoes are cooking, fry the onion in lard or refined oil until transparent, add carrot shavings to it.
8. As soon as the orange preparation becomes soft, add the beets there, stir and cover with a lid.
9. After a few minutes, add pasta, diced peppers and tomatoes to the vegetables in the frying pan and simmer until thickened.
10. Dilute the borscht dressing with a small amount of broth, simmer over low heat until the vegetables are completely cooked.
11. As soon as the potatoes become soft, add cabbage to the broth and cover with a lid. Simmer over low heat until the vegetable is done as desired.
12. Pour the dressing into the pan with the broth, stir. Add all spices except herbs and garlic.
13. After boiling, keep on low heat under the lid for about 5-7 minutes. Add crushed garlic and remove bay leaf.
14. When serving, flavor each serving with a large spoonful of homemade sour cream and generously sprinkle with chopped herbs.
Advice: You cannot leave the bay leaf in the finished dish - the spice will release all the necessary aromas in a few minutes, and then it can spoil the borscht with wormwood bitterness.
Meatless borscht with beans
This option will certainly be useful to anyone who prefers not to use the meat of killed animals for food.
Ingredients:
1 kg of white cabbage;
800 g peeled potatoes;
2 medium table beets;
2 small carrots;
2 onions;
200 g of beans boiled or canned in their own juice;
5 tbsp. l. refined oil;
1-2 bay leaves;
2-4 tsp. table salt;
favorite greens - to taste.
Preparation:
1. Pre-soak the legumes overnight. Boil until tender in a separate pan.
2. Pour 2.5 liters of purified or drinking water into a five-liter fireproof container, cover with a lid and put on fire
3. Chop the peeled onion into cubes, fry in vegetable oil until transparent, remove with a slotted spoon into a separate container.
4. Peel the washed carrots, grate them on a coarse grater or chop them into strips and place them in hot oil. Keep on low heat until a golden hue appears along the edges of the chips, add to the onion.
5. As soon as the water in the pan boils, place the fried vegetables in boiling water, cover with a lid and reduce the heat to low.
6. Grate the washed and peeled beets on a coarse grater or chop them into thin strips, fry in oil for about 10 minutes. Place the root vegetable in the broth.
7. After 15 minutes, add diced potatoes to the general company.
8. Chop the cabbage into large shavings. Place the vegetable in the soup 10 minutes after the potatoes boil.
9. Simmer on the lowest heat under the lid for another quarter of an hour (15 minutes).
10. Place beans in borscht. Add salt and pepper to taste.
11. After 10 minutes, season the dish with finely chopped herbs, cover with a lid and set aside for half an hour.
12. Serve with sour cream or crushed garlic clove.
Advice: The dish turns out to be slightly sweet, so for those who like a traditional sour taste, it is better to stew the fried onions with carrots and a small amount of tomato paste, and add to the dish after the cabbage.
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