Borscht is the most amazing dish of our cuisine. It seems like everyone knows how to cook it. There are several thousand recipes - in the strict sense of the word. Plus hundreds of versions: in Ukrainian, in village, in Czech, in Siberian...

But not every cook turns out borscht so tasty that you want to ask for more. Borscht is the most unpredictable dish in our cuisine. Akin to the mystery of the Russian soul. Even for the same housewife, the cooked borscht will taste slightly different every time. Although she cooked it as always. With the same ingredients. What's the secret? And in the same ingredients. Today we have larger carrots than last week, and a little less cabbage. At that time the potatoes were of one variety, but today they are of a different variety. Well, each piece of meat that we choose for borscht differs from the previous one in the same way that one day will never repeat another. He's different - that's all.

Beetroot soup is not borscht, but rather a red soup, nevertheless very tasty:

Instead of meat, you can put chicken, stewed meat, minced meat, mushrooms, and bouillon cubes in borscht. In general, it can be purely vegetarian, but at the same time remain borscht, and not soup or, say, cabbage soup. By the way, do you know how borscht differs from cabbage soup? Only by the presence of beets in it. Beetroot in combination with cabbage is an essential ingredient of real borscht. It can be boiled in its skin and, after grating or cutting into pieces, added to the preparing borscht at any time during cooking: at the beginning, in the middle, at the end. Boiled beets can also be stewed together with onions, carrots, tomato paste or tomatoes, making a dressing for borscht. Beets can be taken from a jar - pickled in vinegar or with the addition of citric acid. The beets can be filled with warm water and left for a couple of days for them to ferment (this is a Czech recipe) or even insist on kvass(rural cuisine), but you must clearly understand that without beets there is no borscht. And in the absence of cabbage, what you end up with is not borscht, but beetroot soup.

Borscht won't work without potatoes either. It can be cut in any way and thrown into the pan raw. If desired, you can add a couple of spoons of mashed potatoes to the borscht for richness. Or at the end of cooking, mash two or three potatoes, boiled (and, of course, peeled!) whole.

Carrots and onions are also essential components of any borscht. They are either fried or stewed, having previously been chopped, or placed in raw form.

Tomatoes are another essential component of real borscht. They can be fresh (it is better to first remove the skin from them by pouring boiling water over them), in the form of paste or ketchup, as well as any sauce containing tomatoes. Also, look at, do you have a couple of spoons of beans in tomato, lecho, or vegetables in adjika left in your jars? Eat? Feel free to add to borscht instead of tomato, the goodness won’t go to waste!

Everything else is mushrooms in any form, beans grains and capsicums, fresh or canned sweet peppers, hot peppers, celery, parsley, dill and all kinds of spices, seasonings, as well as salt and sugar - are added to borscht as desired. Based on your own fantasies, tastes and preferences. But it’s better, as they say, not to overdo it.

Moreover, the lack of salt or spiciness in borscht is perfectly compensated for when serving it. Real borscht goes amazingly with everything. Any greens, onions, garlic, horseradish, mustard, adjika... Sour cream, mayonnaise, butter... With bread, donuts, crackers...

But before you sit down at the table, borsch still needs to be cooked, right? Still... how to cook borscht? There are some secrets here. Because delicious borscht, which looks appetizing, will only turn out when all its components have already been completely cooked, while retaining their vitamins and nutrients, but have not at all turned into a structureless mess. How to achieve this? You need to understand the simple philosophy of cooking borscht, that is, a series of successive boils, and follow the order of adding all the ingredients.

So, get acquainted with the basic cooking recipe.

If needed cook borscht with meat on the bone, it is better to cook it in. For 500 grams of meat, two and a half liters of cold water, put the pressure cooker on fire and wait until it sizzles. If you take boneless meat or have it chopped into portioned pieces - this is pork, beef, chicken (it is better not to use lamb, rabbit and game for borscht), then cook borscht You can do it in a regular saucepan. Fill with water, cover the pan and turn the heat to full. It boils, turn down the heat, open the lid slightly and let it cook further.

Of the raw vegetables, the first thing we do is add chopped beets to the borscht. It is possible even when the meat has not yet boiled. It will, of course, lose its color by the end of cooking, but it will give the borscht the necessary deliciousness. For a rich color, you can then add boiled beets.

While the beets are boiling, peel the onion, finely chop half of it and throw it into the pan. Many people don’t like boiled onions on their plate, but believe me, they won’t be there, because the onions will boil completely and add a second component of deliciousness to your borscht.

Next, put carrots into the pan (one weighing 100 grams is enough), cut into beautiful strips. And then the borscht starts to look wonderful delicious aroma. And we will strengthen it further by lowering it into pan the other half of the chopped onion.

While everything is cooking over medium heat, we peel the potatoes. About six medium size. We clean two more small ones and put them whole in the pan. We chop the remaining tubers and send them to boil.

Now it's time for cabbage. Volume - a soup plate with a slide. Pour it into the pan and start preparing the salt and seasonings. You cannot add salt to the borscht before you add cabbage. But you can sprinkle half a teaspoon of sugar along with the beets for taste.

One tablespoon of salt is enough for this volume of food. No slide. Because, as you remember, it’s under-salted on the table, but it’s over-salted...

Feel free to throw in borsch a pinch of dried dill and parsley. If you want to use dried roots, it is better to put them in at the very beginning, along with the meat. You can mince or finely chop two cloves of garlic. To enhance the taste, you can also add any bouillon cube. A little ground black pepper. And - it's time for tomatoes. If you use tomato paste, two tablespoons directly into the pan is enough. Let it simmer for another three minutes, and that’s it – you can set the table for dinner. Delicious, appetizing, aromatic vitamin borscht is ready for you.

By the way, you can store such borscht normally for at least a whole week - it won’t disappear until you eat it. Cast from pans for lunch as much as you need, heat it up and - bon appetit!

Dumplings for borscht

Check out our selection of first courses, there are several delicious recipes for you:

Borscht is a traditional everyday dish in almost every family. There are a great many recipes for how to cook borscht, each housewife has her own and each one turns out delicious in her own way. Rate my recipe, it’s easy to prepare, and the borscht turns out excellent - tasty, aromatic and beautiful. 🙂

(per pan 4-5 liters)

• beef soup with bone and pulp 500-700g
• 1 medium beet
• 1 medium sized carrot
• 1/4 medium head of cabbage
• 1 large or 2 small onions
• 4-5 medium potatoes or 6-7 small ones
• 2 tomatoes or 2 tbsp. tomato paste
• 2-3 cloves of garlic, 1 tbsp apple cider vinegar
• dill, parsley, salt, pepper, bay leaf 2-3 pcs.
• odorless vegetable oil

Preparation:

Wash the meat, put it in a saucepan, pour 2.5-3 liters of water and cook at low boil for an hour and a half, skimming off the foam. At the end of cooking, add salt to taste. We take out the finished meat, separate it from the bones and cut it into small pieces. Cover with a plate to prevent it from getting too windy, let it sit.

While the meat is cooking, prepare the vegetables.
Wash the beets, peel them, grate them on a coarse grater.

Shred the cabbage into strips.

Wash carrots clean, grate on a coarse grater.

Peel the onion and cut into small cubes.

Three tomatoes on a coarse grater, cutting them in half and holding them by the skin. Then we throw away the skin.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into small cubes. Leave one of the larger potatoes whole.

Place a whole potato into the broth in which the meat was cooked and cook at low boil for 10-15 minutes. Then add the chopped potatoes and cook for another 7-10 minutes until the potatoes are ready. When the potatoes are almost ready, add the cabbage.
If you are preparing borscht with young, early cabbage, then put it in the pan at the end of cooking the borscht, at the same time as the finished frying, since early cabbage cooks very quickly, almost instantly.
While the potatoes and cabbage are cooking, prepare the frying soup for the borscht. Over medium heat, fry the onion in vegetable oil for 3 minutes until transparent. Then add the grated carrots and continue to fry for another 3-5 minutes.

As soon as the carrots become soft, add grated tomatoes to the pan and, if desired, 1-2 tbsp. l. tomato paste or your favorite ketchup for better taste. Stir, reduce heat to low and simmer for another 3-5 minutes.

At the same time as frying, only in a different frying pan, stew the beets.Pour 2 tbsp into a small frying pan. l. vegetable oil, lay out the beets, add 3-4 tbsp. l. water and 1 tbsp. l. apple cider vinegar. Vinegar is added so that the beets do not lose color, and for taste, of course. Stir, cover with a lid and simmer over low heat for 10-12 minutes.
Pass the garlic through a press or finely chop it, add it at the very end of cooking along with the herbs.

Take the boiled whole potato out of the pan and mash it into a puree with a fork. I add mashed potatoes to almost every soup I make, be it borscht or. This makes the soup taste noticeably better.

In the broth with potatoes and cabbage, add roasted beets, stewed beets, mashed potatoes, chopped meat, a few peppercorns or ground to taste, and 2-3 bay leaves. I repeat, if the cabbage is young, then at this moment we add it. Taste, add some salt, bring to a boil and simmer for 3 minutes. See what a wonderful color the borscht turns out?
Finely chop the greens.

At the very end of cooking, add garlic, herbs, stir and immediately turn off. Let the borscht sit for at least half an hour. You can serve with sour cream, but without it the taste of borscht is better felt.

Now you know how to cook delicious borscht, it’s not at all difficult, the main thing is to want it.

And today I say goodbye to you. Have a good day and good mood everyone!

Always have fun cooking!

Smile! 🙂

Being the main first course in Ukrainian cuisine, bright, tasty borscht has long “got out” beyond the borders of this country. Various versions of this beet-based soup exist in Russia, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Romania and other countries. What is it about this soup that captivates gourmets from different parts of the world? Of course, due to its richness and rich color that beets give to borscht. But many novice housewives, having taken up the preparation of such a simple, at first glance, dish, are often faced with the fact that the beets lose their color, and the borscht does not look as appetizing as the novice cook expected. Or the dish turns out to be too bland to taste, and not multifaceted, as real borscht should be. How to avoid such problems?

How to make the color of borscht rich?

The fact is that when chopped beets are boiled along with the rest of the ingredients directly in borscht, they are not doing exactly the right thing. This will have virtually no effect on the taste of the dish, but the appearance will noticeably suffer. Pale, discolored beets do not look very attractive, which may be noticed by eaters. Therefore, to prepare the perfect borscht, it is not enough to know only the basic recipe. It’s difficult to do without culinary tricks, which we will tell you about below. So, what should you add to borscht so that the beets don’t lose their color?

Of course, not only the taste, but also the color of the future borscht largely depends on the quality of the beets that you plan to use for cooking. However, if the best beets are used for borscht, this will not guarantee that the color of the dish will be rich, as planned.

How to avoid such a situation? It is best to pre-cook the beets separately from other ingredients, for example: steam or bake (in the microwave or oven). The finished beets are peeled, cut into strips or grated on a coarse grater and added to the borscht at the very end of cooking. If beets are baked in foil or steamed, they will retain not only their rich color, but also much more useful substances. And if you like rich borscht, then the finished beets can be additionally fried in lard.

By the way, another great way to prepare delicious borscht with rich color is to add. This homemade convenience food will make your meal delicious.

But if discolored beets don’t bother you too much, and the main goal is to achieve a bright color for the borscht itself, you can boil small beets separately and grate them using a fine grater. Then the color of your delicious borscht will be very rich and super appetizing.
It is also worth noting that beets retain their rich color and do not discolor in the presence of acid. But what can you add to borscht to make it red without spoiling the taste of the dish? Many housewives recommend stewing raw beets in vegetable oil with a small amount of vinegar or sprinkling them with lemon juice before adding them to borscht. And some cooks add kefir, which plays the role of an acidifier, a fixative for the color of beets and at the same time an original dressing for borscht. So we gradually approached the topic of the famous “sourness”, which must certainly be present in borscht.

How to acidify borscht?

The simplest ingredient that can give borscht the desired sour taste and at the same time preserve the color of the beets is table vinegar. However, many housewives avoid using this ingredient, citing its harmfulness to the stomach. Therefore, many do not know what to add to borscht for sourness to make it tasty and healthy. Vinegar is usually replaced with lemon juice or fresh tomatoes. In addition, table vinegar can be replaced with natural analogues - apple, wine or grape vinegar. But it should be taken into account that the dish may acquire unusual flavor shades. Also, a sour taste can be achieved by adding sour and sauerkraut to the borscht, or even a small amount of brine from it (if fresh cabbage is used when preparing the borscht).

You can also add a sour taste to the dish and at the same time make its color more intense by adding beet kvass to it. You can prepare such kvass in advance or immediately before preparing borscht. To stock up on fermented beet juice (kvass) in advance, you need to thoroughly wash and peel the beets, and then cut them into not too thick slices. After this, pour cold water over the chopped vegetable and place it on a windowsill or other warm place for 6 days. Then put the future kvass in the refrigerator, where you can keep it for another 2-3 days. When the beet juice thickens and acquires a rich color, it can be considered ready. Be sure to strain the resulting liquid. You need to add kvass to the borscht at the very end of cooking. With beet kvass you can cook any borscht: either in a saucepan, or borscht with various meats.

This addition is made quickly as follows: peel and grate the beets, put them in a saucepan and add lemon juice (can be replaced with citric acid). Then add a little broth in which the borscht will be cooked (about 200 ml) and bring the future “kvass” to a boil over medium heat, stirring constantly. Cook for 2-3 minutes, cover and remove from heat. After half an hour, the beet broth can already be added to the borscht.

In addition, you can add the desired sourness to a dish by adding tomatoes: fresh, canned in their own juice or in the form of tomato juice or paste.
Sometimes it happens that housewives abuse the sour taste, so the borscht does not turn out as desired. In this case, the most common granulated sugar will help balance the taste of borscht. Some housewives generally consider sugar an essential ingredient of this famous dish. And this is easy to explain, because there are as many recipes for borscht as there are housewives in our country. Each has its own signature techniques and secrets that help make its borscht special and unique.

For many peoples, borscht is a national dish. There are many recipes for it; some housewives add various acids to borscht - citric, acetic or tomato, so the borscht can turn out sour. In this article we will tell you how you can get rid of excess acid in your favorite and satisfying dish.

You will need:

• Carrot;
• Salt;
• Water;
• Eggs;
• Sugar;
• Beet;
• Potato;
• Baking soda;
• High fat sour cream.

How to remove sourness from borscht

1. If you have the opportunity, add a little more salt to the broth; it will help reduce the acidity of the borscht. You can also dilute salt in hot boiled water and then pour it into the borscht.

2. Grate the carrots. Use a frying pan, put the carrots there and simmer over low heat. Add it to the broth, mix thoroughly. Cover the pan with a lid and remove from heat after 5-10 minutes.

3. You can hard-boil 1-3 chicken eggs. Finely chop them and then add to the borscht, 3-5 minutes before the end of cooking.

4. Take the beets, grate them on a coarse grater and add to the borscht.

5. You can reduce the acidity of borscht using granulated sugar. Add a little sugar to the broth, mix well and simmer for a while.

6. Use potatoes that have been pre-cut into strips. After this, add it to the pan with borscht. You need to cook until done.

7. Boil the required amount of water. Pour into the broth, but before doing this, remove an equal amount of liquid from the borscht.

8. Rinse the rice thoroughly and wrap it with a bandage or sterile gauze. The bag of rice needs to be added to the pan, it should absorb excess acid.

9. Add a little baking soda to the boiling borscht, just a little, then mix the liquid thoroughly.

10. Also, most housewives add fatty sour cream to borscht; it can remove acid from borscht.

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The rich taste and aroma of borscht bring great pleasure while eating. However, for some housewives this soup turns orange during the cooking process, and the dark cherry color disappears somewhere. How can you make the borscht turn red? There's nothing complicated about it. The main thing is to figure out why the dish gets a different color. You can give the soup a burgundy hue using different methods. You also need samples that will help you cook red borscht in the future.

Add acid to make borscht red

The color of borscht largely depends on the beets: choose salad beets, which have a dark burgundy tint. Do not add it to the soup too early and cook for about 10-15 minutes. Acid is also added to borscht to preserve color. These include:

• tomato paste - it is placed in beets, which are sautéed in a frying pan separately from other vegetables;
• wine or apple cider vinegar - sprinkle it over the beets before frying, but try not to overdo it;
• lemon juice is suitable for those who do not like vinegar; A small amount is added at the beginning of sauteing.

What should I add to make the borscht red?

When frying beets, so that they retain their color, you can add 1-2 tbsp. l. Sahara. This vegetable is added to the borscht last, otherwise it will affect the color of the potatoes and cabbage during the cooking process.

How to keep borscht red: ways

Not all people like roasted vegetables, which are then added to the first dish. In this case, the borscht can be made burgundy without this process. There are other ways to fix the desired shade:

1. Remove the meat from the prepared broth and place the peeled beets in it. Add the rest of the vegetables to the dish and continue cooking. After 15 minutes, remove the beets. Wait for the soup to cook and then grate it into a bowl.
2. Boil the vegetable in its peel. To do this, first wash the beets and then put them in a saucepan for an hour. Do not add salt to the water, otherwise the vegetable will become tough. Now grate it and place it in the cooked borscht, which then cook for another 2 minutes.
3. Peel the beets. Grate it raw. Place in a metal bowl and fill with hot water. Now start making the borscht, and when it’s ready, add the beets to the dish. Boil for another 5 minutes.