Borscht with beets: red borscht recipe with photos

Prepared by: Anton Soroka

09/07/2018 Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes

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In Ukraine, the most popular dish is borscht. Every housewife knows how to cook it, and each has her own special recipe, which is passed down from generation to generation. I'll tell you how to cook red borscht with beets.

Ingredients:

Water (broth) - 2.8 liters
Cabbage – 1 Kilogram
Bay leaf – 3 pieces
Onion – 1 piece
Carrots – 2 pieces
Vegetable oil - To taste
Beetroot – 3 pieces
Tomato paste – 170 grams
Tomato sauce - 400 Milliliters
Potatoes – 4 pieces
Canned white beans – 400 grams
Salt - To taste
Garlic – 4 cloves
Greens - To taste
Sour cream - To taste

Number of servings: 8

Red borscht: ways to preserve color

Discussions on how to properly cook delicious red borscht have been going on for decades. You will have an exceptional dish with a vibrant ruby hue if you put the following tips into practice. Not all at once, but each individually, choosing for himself the one that is best suited for a particular case.

Choosing a root crop is the first step to success

Not every beet is ready to color borscht a rich ruby color. Some root vegetables are simply not naturally given the red pigment. They cannot be used to prepare this wonderful first course.

When choosing beets in grocery stores, you need to pay attention to their properties:

the color of the root vegetable should be deep burgundy;
take medium-sized heads;
Do not buy wilted root vegetables with wormholes or spots.

Many people grow vegetables at home. Beetroot, which is used for borscht and other dishes, is called canteen. The varieties “Bordeaux”, “Mulatka”, “Bravo”, “Mona” and others are best suited for cooking.

Pre-boiling or baking beets

Heat treatment of root vegetables leads to the fact that the color goes into the decoction, and then becomes pale from prolonged boiling. To save it you need to:

Wash the beets.
Place the root vegetable in a separate pan with water and boil until tender in the peel, without adding salt. The tail should also never be cut off.
Cool, clean.
Cut the beets into thin strips.
Add to borscht when all other components have already been cooked and spices have been added.

An even more gentle cooking method is baking beets in a piece of foil. Proceed with the finished root vegetable in the same way as in the method described above.

How to cook “Red borscht with beets”

1. Place water (broth) in a saucepan and place on the fire, bring to a boil. Meanwhile, wash and chop the cabbage. Add it after boiling, as well as the bay leaf and cook for 20 minutes.

2. Peel the onions and carrots, chop the onions into cubes, and cut the carrots into thin rings. Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil and add vegetables, fry them for 5-7 minutes.

3. Peel and wash the beets, then cut into slices.

4. Place the beets in a frying pan with the onions and carrots, add tomato paste and tomato sauce, salt to taste and pour in 1-2 cups of water from the pan with cabbage, simmer for 10-15 minutes.

5. Peel the potatoes and cut them into small pieces, drain the water from the canned beans.

6. Add the contents of the frying pan, potatoes and beans to the pan, cook after boiling under a closed lid for about half an hour. Add salt and garlic cloves crushed through a press to taste.

7. Serve borscht immediately after cooking with sour cream and fresh chopped herbs. Bon appetit!

Cheesecake recipe

You can serve cheesecakes with any borscht. It turns out to be a truly festive dish. There are a large number of cheesecake recipes. Let's try to bake fluffy cheesecakes using yeast.

Mix a glass of milk, 15 grams of yeast, one and a half tbsp. spoons of granulated sugar, half a teaspoon of soda and 2 chicken eggs. Add 3 cups of sifted flour, stir thoroughly. Add 50 grams of butter or margarine, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of vegetable oil. Continue kneading until the dough begins to move away from your hands and the sides of the bowl. Sprinkle the dough with flour and leave it warm to rise. During the process of rising, knead it 2-3 times and let it rise. Make sure that the dough does not sit too long, otherwise the cheesecakes will turn out sour.

Place the risen dough on a table sprinkled with flour and roll it into a flagellum. Cut into small circles and form cheesecakes. Place them on a greased baking sheet, seam side down, spaced 5 centimeters apart. The baked goods will rise. Leave it warm for about 20 minutes, the baked goods will still rise. Use a wooden pestle to make a hole inside and fill it with cottage cheese filling. The cheesecakes should still rise, so spread them with beaten egg and bake for 20 minutes.

For the filling, take 500 grams of pureed cottage cheese, combine with 2 chicken eggs, add half a glass of granulated sugar, a little salt, 2 tbsp. spoons of melted butter. You can add raisins, zest, vanilla or candied fruits for taste.

And if I’m short on time, I prepare cheesecakes according to my quick recipe.

Grind 200 grams of softened butter, 200 grams of sour cream and one egg, add salt and 2 cups of flour to taste. I put it on the table, on which I pour another glass of flour, stir. I roll it out into a thin layer, cut it into circles with a cup, and place the curd filling in the middle. I pinch the edges and brush with egg. Baking time is 20 minutes.

Some tips for all borscht and beetroot recipes. Don’t forget to add spices at the end of cooking - bay leaf, red and allspice. They enhance the taste of the soup. Pay attention to the dill, the soup will have a special aroma!

You can add a little sugar to the broth, 1-2 teaspoons. The taste and smell of the dish will be completely different. Garlic cut into small cubes should be added when turning off the heat. The dish will be spicy and spicy. Sour cream is always served with any borscht!

The most important and crucial final points when cooking a dish are to constantly taste what you are cooking. A lot depends on these subtleties, especially the taste and aroma of the prepared dish. Recipes for borscht with beets should be successful and delight your family.

And I would like to wish you a bon appetit, tasty and aromatic soups!

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Difference in preparation between beetroot soup and borscht

Borscht is prepared from poultry, pork and beef broth.
Add diced potatoes and shredded cabbage to it. Refilling is done separately. Grated beets are stewed in a saucepan or frying pan; a little vinegar is added, which helps preserve the color. In another frying pan, carrots and onions are fried. Tomato paste or tomatoes are added to the resulting mass and filled with a small amount of water. When the cabbage and potatoes are ready, all the ingredients need to be combined together in a saucepan and boiled a little more. At the end of cooking, garlic and chopped herbs are also added, and in some recipes, small pieces of lard. Borscht can be made according to different recipes, for example, with mushrooms and beans, bell peppers and exotic herbs. You can prepare green borscht, which is made from sorrel, potatoes and the addition of a boiled egg; do not put cabbage in it. Borscht is served exclusively hot with pampushki, spread with garlic sauce, and sour cream.

The basis of beetroot soup is a decoction of beets. The vegetable may also contain a component such as young beet tops. This broth must be poured over pre-boiled and chopped vegetables: beets and carrots, onions and potatoes. Then you can add fresh cucumber and chopped herbs. To make a dish meaty, add meat, boiled sausage or ham. Beetroot soup according to this recipe should be served cold, with sour cream and chopped boiled egg. Hot beetroot soup should be cooked in beef, poultry or pork broth.

Chef's Tips

Meat. You need to take the least fatty piece, no matter what part it is, front or back. The meat will still take a long time to cook. It is best to take boneless meat. They give a darker color, the broth becomes cloudy, and the bones give off a specific smell.

And don't forget to wash the meat before adding it to the broth.

Bouillon. It should be simmered over low heat; if it boils too much, it will become cloudy. It is no coincidence that we add vegetables to the broth: onions take away all the turbidity from the meat, carrots give a beautiful color, celery gives a good taste. By the way, you don’t need to peel the carrots for the broth, just wash them very well.

Beet. It must be raw. Sometimes beets are baked for borscht, but I don’t see the point in that. It will be a completely different taste, a different color. For borscht you need raw beets.

Borschevka . This is a roast of beets, onions and carrots, which we add to borscht. We make it with a small amount of vegetable oil and add a little broth to stew the vegetables. They should give off their taste, become more saturated in both color and aroma. To do this, we sauté the vegetables over low heat.

Acidify . When the vegetables are ready, add a little tomato paste to the borscht. There is no need to replace the pasta with fresh tomatoes. They will not give such a taste or such a color. Tomato paste should be added only at the very end of stewing-frying; if it is done earlier, the vinegar contained in it will kill the color and taste of the beets themselves. You can also acidify with lemon juice. Dry wine is also used for this purpose.

Save color. Sautéed vegetables should be added only after the potatoes and cabbage have been cooked. When put in, do not allow it to boil. Otherwise the color will be lost.

Salt. Just before planting the beets. If you add salt when there are already beets in the soup, you will ruin the color.

Insist . Shchi and borscht are soups that benefit from time. They must stand, the vegetables must give their taste and aroma to the soup. So at least half an hour. It is better to steep the borscht longer.

To warm . Borscht can be reheated several times, this will only make it better. But still, don’t heat it up too much. And be careful with boiling, it causes the soup to lose color and become cloudy.

Borscht with boiled beets and chicken

Compound:

chicken breasts - 0.8 kg;
water - 3.5 l;
white cabbage - 0.3 kg;
potatoes - 0.5 kg;
carrots - 0.2 kg;
sweet pepper - 0.4 kg;
onions - 150 g;
boiled beets - 0.25 kg;
fresh tomatoes - 0.3 kg;
garlic - 3 cloves;
fresh herbs - 50 g;
lemon juice - 20 ml;
salt, spices - to taste.

Cooking method:

Make broth from chicken breasts. Remove chicken from pan. Once the breasts are cool, remove the poultry from the bones and return to the pan.
Peel the potatoes, cut into one and a half centimeter cubes, and place in the broth. Place the pan on the stove.
Shred the cabbage. Place it in the pan when the broth boils.
Peel and finely chop the onion.
Peel the carrots and grate them coarsely.
Wash the pepper, remove seeds, and chop into small strips.
Add carrots, onions and peppers to the soup 10 minutes after the cabbage.
Give the tomatoes boiling water and peel them. Cut the tomato pulp into small cubes and add to the soup 10 minutes after the onions, peppers and carrots. Salt the borscht to taste.
Peel the beets and cut into thin strips. Pour lemon juice into it and stir. Add to the rest of the ingredients 10 minutes after adding tomatoes to the borscht.
After 5 minutes, add finely chopped herbs and garlic. Boil the borscht for 2-3 minutes, remove from heat.