This is my new fav soup and although I tried to prepare it in the past a few times, the result was always, hm, let’s say strange… I learned the proper way to prepare it only some months ago when our Ukrainian friend and collegue invited me and my partner for a dinner. Why she did that? Long story short, due to the war she moved to Budapest from Kyiv and we tried to help her in settling down. In the meantime we became friends and we are learning a lot from her.
I was excited to try Borsch and I was surprised how tasty and complex it is! I asked our friend for the recipe and I already cooked it at least 5 times. I taught it to my mom too and she cooked it already 2 times in the last month. Beetroot is king and now at least we know one more cool way to use it. 😀
What I like about it most is the richness of flavours and that specific “thickness” as it contains so many ingredients. As I start eating I can feel the nutrients flooding into my body: vitamins and minerals from beetroot, carrot, onion, garlic, potato, beans, cabbage, tomato. I serve it with vegan sour cream and toast. It is a great warming food for wintertime, I will certainly cook it to cheer up our coming cold days.
The recipe I got from our friend:
1 onion
1 carrot
1 beetroot
beans (optional)
bell pepper (optional)
mushrooms (optional)
celery (optional)
1/4 of medium cabbage
4 medium potatoes
2 bay leaves
salt
peper
tomato paste
sunflower oil
garlic (optional)
dill (optional) in the end
sour cream (optional) to the plate
She cooked it with beans, bell pepper and dill for me as I am vegan and has to avoid gluten.
Preparation
Chop the onion, the carrots and the beetroot. Fry onions on sunflower oil till they are gold, then add beetroot, then carrots, and salt. Roast them a little, then add tomato paste with some water and stew the soup until the beetroot is semi ready.
If you cook it with beans, put them into water the previous evening so that they swell for the morning.
When the soup is boiling add more water and salt, put the beans to boil first, then the chopped potatoes. When potatoes are semi ready, add the chopped cabbage and a few bay leaves.
Serve it with sour cream and bread.
When I cook this soup I set the timer for 10 minute periods:
- first 10 mins for onions + garlic + beetroot + carrot + 2 cup water, high fire
- next 10 mins with potatos + tomato paste + bay leaves, medium fire
- final 10 or 15 mins for fully cooking the ingedients, low fire
Enjoy! 🙂