Ukrainian Borscht

1. Place the beef in a saucepan and cover with cold water. Over medium heat, bring the water to a boil. As soon as the water boils, reduce the heat to low, skim off the foam from the broth and add the pork. Bring the broth to a boil again, and then add a pinch of salt and, if desired, 1-2 bay leaves, as well as a few black peppercorns and allspice.

2. Cook the meat over low heat at a constant low simmer without covering the pan with a lid. Periodically skim off any foam that forms on the surface. In just an hour, the meat will be ready, but if time allows, it is better to cook the broth much longer - 2-2.5 hours. It is this long cooking at low temperature that allows you to get the most delicious and rich broth.

3. While the meat is cooking, let's do the vegetables. Grease your hands with vegetable oil and peel the beets. The oil will protect the skin of your hands from staining. Cut the beets into thin strips. Heat 1-2 tbsp over medium heat. vegetable oil. Add beets and, stirring, heat for 1-2 minutes.

4. When the pieces are warm and sizzling in the frying pan, pour in a little hot broth and add tomato paste. Mix everything thoroughly and, if necessary, add a little more broth so that all the pieces are covered with tomato sauce.

5. Bring the mixture to a boil. Add 2-3 generous pinches of sugar, then reduce the heat to low and simmer the beets until soft, stirring occasionally.

6. Meanwhile, prepare the remaining ingredients. Heat some vegetable oil over medium heat and add chopped onion. Stirring, sauté the onion for a few minutes until soft.

7. Then add carrots, cut into thin strips. The size of the straw should be approximately the same as that of the beets. Stirring, saute the vegetables for a few more minutes until the carrots are soft.

8. To make the borscht soup a little thicker and denser in taste, add a little wheat flour to the frying. When the carrots are soft, sift 1 tbsp into the pan. wheat flour. If you sift the flour first, it will not curl into lumps. Stirring, cook the mixture for 1-2 minutes until the flour changes color from white to a nutty golden color.

9. Add chopped tomatoes, a little salt and ground black pepper and, stirring, sauté the vegetables for another 7-10 minutes until tender. In winter, instead of fresh tomatoes, you can add high-quality tomato juice (about 100 ml).

10. When the meat begins to fall away from the bone, the broth is ready. Remove the meat and strain the broth. This will both visually clean the broth and rid it of small particles of bones that may have settled to the bottom during cooking. During prolonged cooking and further cooking, part of the broth will evaporate. In order to have enough broth to prepare borscht, you can either immediately pour in extra water, or dilute the broth with hot water to the required volume.

11. Peel and cut the potatoes into medium-sized cubes. Add potatoes to the broth and bring it to a boil.

12. Meanwhile, remove the meat from the bones and cut into small pieces. When the broth with potatoes boils, return the meat to the pan, bring the broth to a boil again and cook for 2-3 minutes.

13. Then add cabbage, cut into thin strips. Also add parsley root or a small piece of celery root.

14. It is worth saying that the time for planting cabbage depends on the season. Winter hard cabbage is added to borscht almost simultaneously with potatoes or even before it, because... it takes quite a long time for it to get ready. Young cabbage, on the contrary, should be added when the potatoes are almost ready.

15. If desired, also add bell pepper. First pierce the pepper with a fork in several places. Bring the broth to a boil and cook the vegetables for another 15-20 minutes.

Bell pepper in Ukrainian borscht is an optional component, but I really like the aroma and taste it gives, and I always add it when it’s in season. Like parsley root, peppers can be added whole to borscht, so that when they give off their aroma and the taste becomes rich enough, they can be easily removed from the pan.

16. Meanwhile, finely chop the lard. Combine lard with chopped garlic. Add 2-3 generous pinches of salt. If desired, you can also add some finely chopped fresh herbs. And then grind everything to a paste in a mortar or blender. According to the classical canons, you need to use “old lard” (yellowed, with a characteristic smell and specific taste). Such lard in moderate quantities gives borscht a unique charm, but you need to be extremely careful with it. You need to add dressing from old lard to borscht in very small portions, constantly tasting it. If you add too much, its taste will drown out all the others.

17. When the potatoes and cabbage are almost ready, add the prepared frying. Bring the broth to a boil and cook everything together for a few more minutes, until the potatoes are cooked and the cabbage is the desired softness. When the vegetables are ready, add the prepared lard and garlic to the broth, mix everything well, simmer over low heat for about another minute and turn off the heat.

18. Add a little red wine vinegar so that the broth has a slightly pleasant sour taste. Then add beetroot dressing. Mix everything thoroughly, taste and add more salt, ground black or hot red pepper to taste. Until this moment, we deliberately did not salt the borscht too much, so that when adding a salty dressing made from lard and garlic, the borscht would not be over-salted.

19. Sprinkle the borscht with fresh herbs, cover the pan with a lid and be sure to let the borscht steep for at least 10-15 minutes so that all the aromas and flavors mix.

20. In the meantime, if you wish, you can prepare a bread plate for Ukrainian borscht. Cut off the top of the bread and scoop out the crumb, leaving only a layer about 1 centimeter thick. Knead and compact the remaining crumb tightly. Then thoroughly brush the inside of the “bread plate” with lightly beaten egg white. Place the bread in an oven preheated to 180-200 degrees for 5-7 minutes until the bread is warmed through, dry and browned.

21. Ukrainian borscht is ready!

22. Serve borscht with sour cream, complemented with hot pampushkas with garlic and, if desired, hot pepper or adjika. Bon appetit!