Borscht is a dish that each of us must have tried. Any hostess, every culinary specialist knows the recipe for this extraordinary dish. However, in order to cook the real most delicious borscht, you need to know some subtleties and little secrets. The soup is seasoned with beets - the main ingredient. Beets can be used boiled, browned or stewed. The borscht recipe, in addition to it, is added with various other vegetables.

There is an opinion that every housewife cooks borscht with her own individual taste. And this is true, there are a lot of cooking options for this dish, so everyone will find a recipe with that very unique taste. The basis of borscht is properly cooked meat broth. You can use any meat for it. The classic recipe is usually based on beef or bone-in pork, but many prefer poultry. If you take meat on the bone, then you must first boil it and remove the bone. It is not recommended to salt the broth at the very beginning. The taste will not improve from this, but the nutrients will be lost. In order to cook the broth correctly, you need to take the meat on the bone, pour it with cold water and, after boiling, remove the foam, then reduce the fire and cook for about two hours. Only by observing these secrets, the broth can be cooked transparent and rich.

Stock up on Ingredients:

• Meat on the bone - 1 kg.
• Beet - 1 pc.
• Potatoes - 4 pcs.
• Bow - 1 goal.
• Carrot - 1 pc.
• Bulgarian pepper - 2 pcs.
• Tomatoes - 2 pcs.
• Fresh cabbage - 300 g.
• Greenery.
• Vegetable oil.
• Spices.

Recipe

1. Like every recipe, ours also says that before cooking borscht, meat needs preliminary preparation. We wash a piece of meat in cold water, cut off all excess films from it, if any. Pour the meat with cold water and put the container on the stove. The amount of water does not matter, the main thing is that it completely covers the meat. This affects the fat content of borscht. For about 1 kilogram of meat, you need to take 2 - 2.5 liters of water.

2. While the broth is cooking, you need to cook the vegetables.

3. Grind cabbage, clean onions, carrots. We are engaged in beets, remove the seeds from the pepper, removing the middle with the stalk from it. You don't need to touch the potato yet. Otherwise, it will turn black and dry, then the borscht will be tasteless.

4. Do not forget about the broth. After boiling water, remove the scale with a slotted spoon and make the light smaller. To get rid of all the scale, move the pan a little to the side so that the scale forms on one side. After the new scale stops appearing, with a clean napkin, remove all its remnants from the walls of the pan. Use a spoon to scoop out the fat spots floating on top of the broth. You have to repeat everything from time to time. Salt the broth. The recipe reminds you that the water will boil away a little during cooking, so add a little less salt.

Secrets to help: To make the soup thicker, you need to boil one whole potato in it. When it is ready, take it out, knead it well and put it back.

5. We begin to prepare vegetable dressing. The recipe recommends that you do everything in sequence, cut the vegetables correctly, and then the soup will turn out to be very tasty, rich and fragrant, which will delight the whole family.

6. We clean the potatoes, wash and remove all the eyes. Cut into not too large cubes. Moreover, for density, you can mash the potatoes with a spoon. We put it in a saucepan and let it boil until the potatoes are cooked, chop the cabbage. We put it in a saucepan.

7. Cut the onion and other vegetables. Pour the oil into the pan and, when it is hot, put the onion there, fry lightly, stirring occasionally. There we also put the pepper cut into thin strips and the tomato, cut into cubes, grated carrots and at the very end we fill the top with beets. Stir and cover the pan with a lid - let it stew a little.

Secrets to help: To make the soup a rich color, you need to add a teaspoon of 6% acetic acid or lemon juice to the pan with beets. The acid will prevent the red pigments of beets and tomatoes from being destroyed by high temperatures.

8. In order not to violate the cooking recipe, put tomato paste, flour in a separate plate, mix everything thoroughly and dilute with cold water, stirring vigorously so that lumps do not form. Remove the lid from the pan and add the tomato preparation there, while stirring constantly. Continue to stir the contents of the pan until the color of the tomato paste changes and becomes a rich red hue. Then pour the finished workpiece into a saucepan. Stir borscht and add spices.

Secrets to help: To improve the taste of borscht, the recipe advises to take a piece of good fat, rub it with salt and garlic, add the resulting fragrant mixture to the finished soup. This is done as follows: cut a piece of lard finely with a knife, take a couple of cloves of garlic and chop on a board with a pusher, mix, evenly rubbing the lard with garlic. Before turning off the gas, we dip our fragrant garlic billet into the borscht. Be sure to cover the pan with a lid (do not close, but cover), let it brew a little for a richer taste.

9. Add seasonings. Usually these are peppercorns, bay leaves, fresh parsley.

10. Let the borscht stand for a while so that it is saturated with garlic flavor, it will take 20-30 minutes under a closed lid. After this time, you can serve the dish on the table and call the whole family for dinner. There is such a delicious borscht with fresh rustic sour cream! The recipe for a delicious rich dish with a pleasant red color will not leave indifferent even the most severe critic!

INTERESTING: Before the advent of potatoes, borscht was cooked with beets and beans. It was prepared separately, or boiled in broth along with meat. This is how they cook now, the number of potatoes decreases or we completely replace it with beans.

Any borscht will be even tastier if you eat it not with a simple bread, but with fresh, hot donuts - buns made from yeast dough with fragrant garlic sauce. They are very simple and easy to prepare.

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A very detailed recipe for Ukrainian borscht with beets and 7 useful tips will help you prepare a real soulful dinner.

Delicious and rich Ukrainian borscht cannot be whipped up in haste. Most main rule cooking borscht means having free time and a great desire to cook it. If you are in a hurry or you are not in the mood to stand at the stove, it is better not to start, but to cook any.

When I cook borsch, such appetizing aromas hover around the house that my husband looks into the kitchen endlessly, lifting the lid of the pot and sniffing =)

In each region and in each family, borscht is cooked differently. If you have never cooked borsch or just don’t know how to cook it, then my most detailed step-by-step recipe with photos will be a good guide for you =)

Let's start cooking borscht according to our traditional family recipe!

Ingredients for delicious Ukrainian borscht

Quantity of products for a 5-6 liter pot:

• Beef on the bone - 300 gr
• Pork on the bone (stew) - 500 gr
• Potatoes - 300 gr (3-4 pieces)
• Onion - 200 gr (2 pcs)
• Carrots - 150 gr (1 large)
• Cabbage - 350 gr (1/4 medium head)
• Beets - 300 gr (2 medium pieces)
• Tomatoes - 200 gr (3-4 medium pieces)
• Sweet pepper 100 gr (1 pc)
• Hot pepper - 1 pod optional
• Tomato paste - 2-3 tbsp / l optional (for taste)
• Sunflower oil - 30 ml
• Butter - 30 gr
• Garlic - 3-5 cloves
• Small piece of fat
• Bay leaf, allspice - to taste

For the broth:

• 1 bulb
• 1 carrot
• parsley root
• Celery root
• Dill or parsley stalks

I always cook borscht thick enough. Therefore, you can reduce the amount of vegetables. I add tomato paste for color and richer taste. Most of all I like Chumak, Rosana and Genichanochka. Well, let's start!

How to cook borscht with beets? You need to start by making excellent broth!

For borscht, it is important to cook a good broth and not spare vegetables.

Beef, pork and poultry, especially homemade, are well suited for the broth. I can’t explain why this is so, but a very tasty borscht is obtained precisely on a domestic rooster.

Tip 1. If you cook borsch on meat, then it is better to take both pork and beef, always on the bone. This will make a great rich broth. I rarely cook with poultry.

We wash the meat, cut off pieces of fat, if any, and put it in a saucepan. Pour cold water to cover the meat 3-5 cm above and put on fire.

At the same time, we put a pan with beets on the stove and boil it in its uniform until cooked.

Tip 2. If you want a delicious broth, put the meat in cold water. If you want tasty meat - hot.

Bring the meat to a boil, reduce the heat and remove the resulting foam. Cook for about 20 minutes and drain the water.

Put the meat back into the pot, add water and bring to a boil again.

While the water is boiling, prepare the vegetables for the broth: onion, carrot, dill stalks, bay leaf, garlic. Coarsely chopped celery root or parsley root can also be added.

We put the vegetables in a saucepan with boiling broth, reduce the heat to a minimum, close the lid and cook over low heat for at least 2-3 hours.

Tip 3. The broth should not boil, it should slowly gurgle and languish.

Here is the broth in the making:

Now let's prepare the vegetable dressing

Tip 4. The more variety of vegetables and fat you add to the dressing, the tastier your borscht will be.

It doesn't have to be a lot of fat.

Small pieces of fat that you cut off from the meat are sent to the pan. The smell of fried bacon will give the borscht an appetizing flavor. I try to choose leaner meat, so I don't cut too much fat.

Fry the pieces of fat.

Chop the onion and put it in the pan. Add some sunflower and butter.

Lightly fry (5-7 minutes) until golden brown.

Coarsely grate the carrots and add to the onions.

Fry for about 2-3 minutes.

Sweet pepper cut into small cubes, add to the vegetables.

Fry everything together for a couple of minutes.

Grind tomatoes in a blender and pour into a pan.

Add tomato paste.

Stir and simmer over very low heat for about 20-30 minutes.

If you want spicy borscht, add a pod of hot pepper to the dressing.

The gas station is almost ready.

We remove the prepared vegetables from the broth and take out the meat.

Grate the carrots and return to the broth, discard the rest of the vegetables.

We separate the meat from the bones and put it in a borscht dressing.

Stir, simmer for about 2 minutes, the dressing is ready. The meat can be put back into the broth, but I usually don't do this, otherwise it will be too soft.

Potato cut into cubes.

Add to broth and cook for about 7-10 minutes.

Shred the cabbage finely.

Put the cabbage in a saucepan, bring to a boil and cook over low heat until the cabbage is ready. This usually takes 5 to 10 minutes. It all depends on the type of cabbage.

While the cabbage is cooking, peel the beets and rub them on a coarse grater.

Grind a piece of lard, garlic and a pinch of salt in a mortar.

When the cabbage is ready, put the dressing in the pan.

We mix.

Bring to a boil.

We spread the beets, lard crushed with garlic and salt.

Stir and remove from heat after boiling.

Tip 5 It is impossible to boil borscht with boiled beets for a long time, otherwise the borscht will lose its color.

Beets for borscht can be prepared in another way: grate on a coarse grater or cut into strips and stew in a small amount of water with the addition of 1-2 teaspoons of vinegar. In this case, the beets will not lose their color after boiling.

Tip 6 If you are preparing borsch from early varieties of cabbage, then the order of laying the ingredients in the pan is different:

1. Put the potatoes in the broth.

2. After 5-10 minutes (the potatoes should be half cooked), add dressing, cook for 3-5 minutes.

3. Put the finished beets with young cabbage, bring to a boil and turn off. Usually young cabbage is enough to boil. It should not be cooked for a long time, otherwise it will turn into sourdough.

Tip 7. Let the borscht brew for at least 1-2 hours.

Here is my delicious rich and fragrant Ukrainian borscht! =)

In our family, borsch is traditionally served with garlic, sour cream, green onions and rye fragrant bread.

How many calories are in my borscht? About 65-70 kcal per 100 grams

• Proteins - 3.3 gr
• Fats - 3.7 gr
• Carbohydrates - 4.2 gr

And here are some more photos:

Enjoy your meal, friends! And don't forget to hit likes, "oki" and "I like" to tell your friends about the super delicious borscht recipe =)

Best regards, Natalie Lissy

Borsch is a very mysterious and unusual dish, the methods of preparation of which are still disputed. In different Slavic countries, borsch is cooked in its own way - with sausages, smoked meats, fish, horseradish, zucchini, beans and even apples. Each family has its own secrets of delicious borsch, which are passed down from generation to generation, but one thing remains unchanged - the love for this amazingly delicious dish, which is impossible to resist. small children also love it, so in cookbooks for newborns there are tips and tricks for preparing this soup for babies. Now borscht has become almost an international dish, and if you want to please your family with borscht, choose any recipe - Ukrainian with donuts, Moldavian with chicken, Old Lithuanian 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 fragrant.

Borscht starts with broth

Borscht is usually boiled in a strong meat broth made from good beef, pork or chicken, and if you decide to use beef, use the 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 manage with minced meat and stew, and some manage to cook a vegetarian version of real Ukrainian borscht. If you are making meat broth, boil it as long as possible to make it richer. Bones are boiled for 5–6 hours, and meat for about 2.5 hours, just do not forget to remove the foam. During the cooking process, onions, carrots, celery and a bunch of greens can be added to the meat to enrich the taste of the broth. After cooking, 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 is cooked, it's time to put beets into it - it is the presence of beets that distinguishes real borscht from other first courses. The 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 beetroot can be added to the broth long before the meat is ready, or, having boiled it in a peel and cut into pieces, lay it in the soup at any stage of cooking borscht. You can put half a teaspoon of sugar in a saucepan with 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, beetroot brine or tops. Czech housewives let the beets ferment a little in warm water, and in the villages they insist on kvass. To enhance the red color, a little lemon juice or beet extract is added 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 beetroot soup!

Tricks with vegetables when cooking borscht

If the chopped onion is put into 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 spicy taste and aroma. Carrots are introduced into the broth a little later, cut into strips, and then potatoes are sent into the pan - while it is better to put a couple of tubers in the whole soup. Carrots and onions are added to borscht either raw, or with preliminary stewing or frying, and whole boiled potatoes can be mashed or mashed potatoes can be added to the liquid to make the borscht thicker.

At the end of cooking, you can do cabbage by finely chopping it and adding it to borscht, although some housewives introduce cabbage immediately after 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 eaters. 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 pre-skinned.

Secrets of cooking borscht with frying

Frying makes fragrant, rich, bright, because fried vegetables have a more pleasant taste. Zazharka is prepared simply - 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 little flour until it becomes creamy, and only then add chopped carrots, bell peppers and boiled beets. In 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 vegetables, for piquancy, you can add sugar and garlic.

Modern culinary traditions are aimed at simplifying the cooking process as much as possible, and many housewives are mastering recipes for how to cook borscht in a slow cooker in order to feed the family with delicious food in record time. But sometimes you want to devote the whole day to cooking dinner and slowly boil the broth, chop and fry vegetables, experiment with products, choose fragrant 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 the 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 - if there is borscht in the house, the household will not calm down until it is eaten. As the people said, "where there is borscht, look for us there."

The ongoing debate about which borscht is tastier - Ukrainian or Russian, leads nowhere. But the fact remains - this delicious first course has conquered the whole world and has become the hallmark of Slavic cuisine.

There are, of course, classic ones (you can read about this in the famous V. Pokhlebkin and in other cookbooks), but in Russia, in Ukraine, each locality has its own version of this dish, and each housewife prepares borscht in her own way . Therefore, there are a lot of borscht recipes.

We, having collected recipes from friends, relatives and acquaintances, rummaged through old magazines, chose the most interesting ones. These recipes can be used by both experienced and novice housewives.

In addition, you will get acquainted with some secrets of culinary specialists.

Borscht in meat and bone broth

The whole secret of this borscht is that vegetables, except for potatoes and cabbage, are first stewed separately in a frying pan and only then added 7-10 minutes before they are ready in a saucepan with cabbage and potatoes.

Put the beef bone for the broth into cold (!) Water, cook without salt, removing the foam, for 40 minutes. Then add the meat, cut into pieces, 20 minutes later than the bones.

While the broth is cooking, you can cook roast .

To do this, fry coarsely chopped onions in a mixture of vegetable (preferably unrefined) and butter until golden brown. Add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of flour and mix well (the flour should “roast”, i.e. stop being white). After that, put the carrots and, cut into strips, simmer for 5 minutes. Now you need to lay the beets, also cut into strips, stir for another 5-7 minutes, add tomatoes or tomato paste, stir for 3 minutes. Cover the pan with a lid and simmer over moderate heat, adding a little water, until almost cooked. Do not salt!

When the broth is cooked, strain, return the meat to the pan, bring to a boil. Lay coarsely chopped cabbage. After 10 minutes (if borsch with fresh cabbage) - potatoes, cut into large cubes. Bring to a boil, put a bay leaf, a few peas of black pepper (if you like, you can add cloves), salt to taste.

It's time for the frying. Dip it in a saucepan, if necessary, salt, pepper, add chopped garlic, herbs and, if desired, your favorite spices, for example,.

Turn off the heat and leave the lid on for a while.

And the next day, borscht becomes even tastier!

Or here's another little secret: 10 minutes before the end of cooking, you can grind a handful of dry porcini mushrooms in a coffee grinder and carefully add this powder to the borscht. Surprisingly, this does not give borscht a mushroom flavor at all, but the taste of borscht becomes unusual.

Let this be, so to speak, the basic recipe for our borscht, on the basis of which you can always cook your own, having done only the manipulations known to you.

Now it's time to peep and some secrets of making delicious borscht .

... It is customary to cook borscht in a strong meat broth. Meat can be used differently, but you should not save time on preparing the broth. The longer it cooks, the richer and more aromatic it becomes. Very often, when boiling the broth, the water boils away strongly, you can add it, but only boiling water, cold water can spoil both the taste and aroma of borscht.

…Beetroot is considered an indispensable vegetable for borscht; it is put into borscht raw, sautéed, boiled or stewed. Beets are considered the main component of borscht. Borscht also includes tomatoes, potatoes, cabbage, onions, and carrots.

... Of no small importance is the process of laying vegetables in the broth.

The first vegetable that goes into the broth is the potato. In some recipes, it is even recommended to fry it a little. This will give even more richness and richness to the taste of borscht.

As soon as half ready, you need to add cabbage. While the cabbage is being cooked, in no case should you cover the borscht with a lid, otherwise the unpleasant smell of cabbage will spoil the whole aroma of borscht.

Some housewives put a couple of whole potatoes in the borscht, then knead them and send them back to the pan along with the frying.

All other vegetables (onions, carrots, parsley or celery root, pepper, tomato) should preferably be pre-sautéed and stewed well.

... Do not neglect spices and spices. Borscht will be spicy decorated with garlic, allspice and bay leaf.

The rich red color of borscht is, of course, given by its main ingredient, beets. And so that our borscht is not only tasty, but also beautiful, let's learn some more secrets that different housewives use.

... Use dark cherry-colored beets for borscht (Bordeaux, Egyptian, Cylinder varieties are excellent). So juicy and sweet in taste.

...Beets will not lose their color if sprinkled with lemon juice.

You can boil the beets separately in their skins, and add a tablespoon of vinegar to the boiling water. After that, peel the beets, grate on a coarse grater or cut into strips and add to the almost ready borscht. Let it simmer a little more.

... To cook borscht of a rich red color, you can also use this method: pour boiling water over grated beets. Then drain this liquid, but do not pour it out. Put beets in borscht. And pour in the liquid from the beets at the very end of cooking. Bring to a boil and turn off the heat.

… Beet roast should be added to borscht at the end of cooking.

…Tomato paste also plays a role in the color of borscht. Even if in the summer you cook borscht with fresh tomatoes, a spoonful of tomato paste will not hurt. And in winter, tomato paste can be combined with homemade tomato or canned tomatoes.

... In order for the borscht to turn red, you need to observe the proportions of beets, carrots and onions. So usually take 3 parts of beets, 2 parts of carrots and 1 part of onions. Simmer in a pan with the addition of sunflower, oil, water and sugar until the beets give juice. Add to the pan when cabbage and potatoes are cooked in the broth. At the end of cooking, you can add crushed garlic and ground red pepper.

And now the recipes.

Borscht "Red"

Meat (better, of course, beef, but not important, you can any) pour water and put on fire. When it boils, remove the foam, reduce the heat to a minimum, put a whole peeled onion and cook until the meat is cooked from 1 hour to 2.5 hours (depending on the meat used). At the end, salt the broth, remove the onion.

Throw the potatoes into the broth, cut into strips.

While the potatoes are cooking cook roast: fry finely chopped onions in a pan in vegetable oil until golden brown, add grated carrots and grated beets, overcook. Then add, of your choice (what is available), fresh grated, tomato or tomato paste diluted with water or broth, simmer until the liquid is almost completely evaporated.

Shred fresh cabbage very thinly.

When the potatoes are cooked, put the frying, bring to a boil. After that, put the cabbage and bring to a boil again. Throw bay leaf, ground black pepper, cook for 3 minutes. Add finely chopped herbs and turn off the heat.

Russian borsh

Required 400 g of pork, 400 g of beef, 1 onion, 200 g of carrots, 300 g of beets, 200 g of white cabbage, 500 g of red tomatoes, 50 g of parsley root or celery root. Besides , 2 bay leaves, 5 peas of black and allspice, 1 teaspoon of salt, 50 ml of vegetable oil, 20 ml of table vinegar, 20 g of sugar.

Pour the washed meat with clean cold water (3.5-4 liters) and bring to a boil over high heat. After that, reduce the fire so that it boils quite a bit, remove the foam that appears on the surface. Boil the meat for about 1.5 hours. When it can be easily pierced with a fork or knife, it is ready.

About halfway through the cooking process, add the bay leaf and peppercorns.

Onion cut into cubes. To do this, peel the onion, cut into 4 parts and chop finely. The bulb should be quite large.

Cut carrots and beets into thin strips. It is believed that chopped vegetables are better for borscht than grated ones.

Finely chop the cabbage, and chop the parsley or celery into strips.

When the meat is ready, remove it from the broth and cut into portions.

Strain the broth, return to the pan, salt and put the chopped meat there. Please note that salt is added exactly at the end of cooking the broth.

Put the cabbage into the strained broth and cook until it is ready.

Put beets, onions, carrots and celery (parsley) in a pan or saucepan with vegetable oil, add a little (100-150 ml) of broth and simmer covered over low heat for about 20 minutes.

In the process of stewing, vegetables must be stirred so that they do not burn.

In the middle of cooking, add peeled and chopped tomatoes, sugar and vinegar to the vegetables. Simmer until the vegetables are fully cooked, then send them to the broth with the finished cabbage. Turn off the finished borscht and cover with a lid so that it brews a little.

When serving, add sour cream and greens to the borscht. Garlic and black bread go well with borscht.

There is sometimes more controversy around borscht than around politics. In fact, no one knows what the right borscht is. It should be delicious - that's the main rule, - says Ilya Lazerson, President of the St. Petersburg Guild of Chefs. - Personally, I do not like it when there are potatoes and sweet peppers in borscht. In my version, they are not, and this is my right. Someone loves sauerkraut, and pre-boil or bake beets. I prefer raw beets. I cut it into thin strips, add a little sugar, water, vegetable oil, after 5 minutes - tomato paste. Then I add the carcass of beets and ready-made ones at the very end of cooking into the pan. Thanks to this, the soup acquires a rich, appetizing shade. And this is just one of the secrets of delicious borscht.

1. With or without broth?

Vegetarian borscht does not require meat broth. But, if you are a fan of the classic soup, then you need to cook a rich broth. For him, you can take beef brisket, chicken or pork and beef in a 1: 1 ratio. For flavor, it is better to pre-fry the pieces of meat. Or immediately put the meat on the bones in cold water and put on fire. As it boils, remove the foam, add salt, bay leaf, a few peas of black and allspice and cook for 2-3 hours until the meat is fully cooked. Then the broth must be filtered, remove the meat from the bones, chop and return to the pan.

2. Stew beets separately!

If you put the beets in a common pan and then cook for about an hour, all the color from the vegetable will go away and the borscht will turn out faded. To avoid this, you need to grate the root crop on a coarse grater or cut it into thin strips with a knife. Then add water, a teaspoon of sugar and be sure to add a little acid (a couple of tablespoons of wine vinegar or lemon juice), this will help the root crop retain its color. Put the beetroot on the fire and simmer until it becomes soft.

3. Or maybe cook?

The second popular option for preparing beets for borscht is to boil it in advance. It is important that before you lower the vegetable into the water, rinse it thoroughly without cutting off the roots and top, otherwise the juice will “leave” into the pan. For better preservation of a bright shade, do not salt the water, but pour 1/2 tsp into it. vinegar or citric acid. Cooking time depends on the size of the fruit and the season - young small root crops are usually cooked for 20-30 minutes, old ones - 1-1.5 hours. However, today most chefs advise not to boil, but to bake beets. To do this, wrap the fruit in food foil and send it to the oven for 30-40 minutes (the time depends on the size of the tuber) at + 180 ° C. In baked beets, the taste and color do not “dissolve” in water, so this cooking method is considered the most successful.

Borscht classic Photo: shutterstock.com

Ingredients:

• Beef brisket - 500 g
• Pork - 500 g
• Carrot - 1 pc.
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Beets - 2 pcs.
• Cabbage - 300 g
• Sweet pepper - 1 pc.
• Potato - 200 g
• Tomato paste - 1 tbsp. l.
• Bay leaf, pepper, salt - to taste

How to cook:

1. Put the meat in a saucepan, pour 3 liters of cold water, bring to a boil, cook for 2 hours.
2. Cut carrots into strips, onions into half rings, fry until golden brown. Place in a bowl along with chopped peppers.
3. Ten minutes later, add cabbage, then potatoes.
4. Cut the beets into thin strips, simmer for 10 minutes, then add the tomato paste, cover and cook for another 20 minutes.
5. Put in borscht 10 minutes after the potatoes. Cook for 10 more minutes.
6. Add bay leaf, salt and pepper. Remove from heat, let stand 20 minutes.

4. Don't Forget the Cabbage

Many people call borscht beetroot soup. In fact, they are different soups. There is cabbage in borscht, but not in beetroot. Most often, fresh white cabbage chopped into strips is used for borscht. But there may be variations on the theme. For example, you can put red or Savoy in a saucepan - outwardly it looks like a white head, but it has a bright green color and corrugated bubble leaves. There are even variants of borscht with cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, but with them you still get a soup that is far from the classic one. Someone likes to add sauerkraut instead of fresh. It must be washed, cut, stewed separately until soft and only then added to borscht.

5. Unsweetened couple: onion and carrot

Nutritionists are against all kinds of passerovka, which add calories to the dish. But speaking from the point of view of taste and gastronomic rules, then borscht without sautéing is not borscht. First, in vegetable oil, you need to fry the onion into strips, then add the carrots chopped into strips. When the vegetables acquire a golden hue, you need to put the tomato paste and simmer everything together for a few more minutes. Some housewives believe that instead of pasta it is better to use tomatoes - fresh or in their own juice. Nevertheless, many professional chefs insist that only pasta has a concentrated taste that is so necessary for the soup, which will give borscht a beautiful shade and pleasant sourness.

6. Vegetables - to taste

In addition to beets, carrots, onions and cabbage, other vegetables are put into borsch to taste: potatoes, tomatoes and fresh sweet peppers, which are also chopped into strips. In general, do not forget that all products in the soup should be cut approximately the same. You can use any color of pepper: green, yellow, red, orange. The main thing is to keep the proportion: there should be a lot of beets and cabbage in borscht, and potatoes, tomatoes and peppers - 2-3 times less.

7. Who is first in line?

Borsch, like most other soups beloved by Russians, belongs to the filling first courses. It is in the West that pureed soups are preferred, but we should have a broth in which various tasty additives float. In order for these additives to harmoniously combine with each other and get the right consistency (and not when one product is overcooked and the other crunches on the teeth), you must observe the correct dressing of the soup.

First of all, shredded cabbage should go into the pan, it is cooked longer than others. Then - sweet peppers and potatoes. At the very end, you need to put browned onions with carrots and tomato paste in the borscht, and in the final - ready-made sour beets. After that, cook the soup should be no more than 5 minutes. If you cook borscht with sauerkraut, it must also be added in the final. If you put sour beets or cabbage first, and then potatoes, the latter will cook for a very long time (acid will interfere).

8. The final touch - lard with garlic

Many borscht lovers simply cannot imagine this soup without garlic dressing on lard. It gives the dish a bright juicy taste and a very appetizing garlic aroma... For dressing you will need skinless lard, garlic and fresh herbs: dill and parsley. Products must be cut and crushed in a mortar or blender to a puree state. Then this gruel, with a delicious aroma, is added to the finished hot borscht, the lid is closed, and the soup is infused for at least 15 minutes. You should not boil the contents of the pan after this, otherwise the aromas of garlic and herbs will disappear.

9. Pampushki lush, ruddy

We say "borscht", and the word "pampushka" comes to mind! Pampushka is a round bun made from yeast dough. It is better to start cooking it immediately after you put the broth on to boil, because the yeast dough should rise properly and have time to bake. Water, egg, salt, sugar, vegetable oil, yeast, flour - the ingredients for buns are simple. When the dough has risen, roll the balls and put them on a baking sheet, but remember that the donuts will rise during baking. If you want to get perfectly rounded buns, place them at a decent distance from each other. However, even if they stick together, they can be separated hot and sprinkled with garlic dressing. For dressing, take vegetable oil, crushed garlic, chopped dill with parsley and a little water. Mix everything and pour on freshly baked puffy donuts.

10. Without sour cream anywhere!

If a soup tureen has been gathering dust on the shelf of your sideboard for a long time, take it out and use it for its intended purpose - it is in this beauty that it is customary to serve borscht for a large company. Next, put the appropriate supplements and snacks for the dish - donuts, bread, chopped herbs and, of course, fatty sour cream. Well, what a borscht without sour cream!

Borscht with beans Photo: shutterstock.com

Borscht with prunes and mushrooms

Ingredients:

• Prunes - 200 g
• Dried white mushrooms - 20 g
• Potatoes - 4 pcs.
• Fresh cabbage - 300 g
• Beets - 3 pcs.
• Onion - 1 pc.
• Carrot - 1 pc.
• Tomato paste - 2 tbsp. l.
• Sugar - 1 tbsp. l.
• Parsley root - 1 pc.
• Flour - 0.5 tbsp. l.
• Vegetable oil - 3 tbsp. l.

How to cook:

1. Soak mushrooms for 2 hours. Then boil for 1 hour. Remove the mushrooms, chop, save the broth.
2. Rinse prunes, pour 2 cups of water, add sugar and cook until soft for 10 minutes.
3. Cut the beets into strips. Heat half the oil in a frying pan, add beets, 1 tbsp. l. tomato paste and mushroom broth, simmer, stirring, over low heat for 15 minutes.
4. Cut the onion, carrot and parsley root into strips and sauté with butter, tomato and flour for 5 minutes.
5. Dip the cabbage into the boiling mushroom broth, after boiling add the potatoes and cook for 15 minutes.
6. Put stewed beets and sautéed vegetables in a saucepan. Add mushrooms, boiled prunes along with the broth. Salt, pepper and cook for another 10 minutes.

Garlic donuts Photo: shutterstock.com

Garlic donuts

Ingredients:

• Wheat flour - 200 g
• Rye flour - 120 g
• Milk - 200 ml
• Eggs - 2 pcs.
• Yeast - 7 g
• Vegetable oil - 50 ml
• Sugar - 1 tsp
• Flax seeds - 50 g
• Garlic - 4 cloves
• Salt - a pinch

How to cook:

1. Warm milk to room temperature. Add dry yeast, mix.
2. Put sugar, 1 egg, vegetable oil, a little sifted flour and flax seeds. Mix.
3. Add the remaining flour, knead the dough and leave it to rise for 1 hour.
4. Put on the table and let rise for another 1 hour, covered with a towel.
5. Make 7-8 round donuts, grease the top of the buns with yolk and bake for 20 minutes at 180°C.
6. Grease still hot donuts with crushed garlic, mixed with a small amount of vegetable oil, salt and water.