Paying tribute to the famous Soviet and Russian historian and culinary expert William Pokhlebkin - a recipe for the most delicious Ukrainian borscht from his book.
William Vasilyevich, the kingdom of heaven to him, was a great dreamer and inventor. Often his general statements turned out to be particulars, but I am really grateful to him for his "Kitchens of Our Nations". It was from this book that my hobby for cooking moved from the stage "I learned a new recipe, I must try" to the stage - "why is it prepared this way and not otherwise." Perhaps it was just a coincidence - but the book, written in the style "First, the general principles of cooking, then special cases of the same dish", very successfully lay on the subcortex of my, then completely fragile, youthful brain)))
It was all the more surprising that of the whole heap of recipes presented in that book, only one single one took root in our family without changes. Okay, almost unchanged.
Products composition:
To get borscht in the amount of 7.2 ... 7.4 liters you will need:
Beef brisket with bones - 1 ... 1.2kg
Fresh cabbage (but not young!) - 0.8kg
Potatoes - 0.7kg
Beet 0.6kg
Onions 0.3kg
Carrots 0.2kg
Parsley root 0.1kg
Tomato paste 0.15ml
Lard 0.1kg
Butter 50g
Apple cider vinegar (or table vinegar 3%) - 2 tbsp. spoons
Sugar - 1 tbsp. the spoon
3-4 bay leaves
4-6 cloves of garlic
Black pepper
Parsley
Water for broth 5.5 liters
This recipe is noticeably different from the borscht that my mother cooks, and from what my grandmother cooked (those borscht are also tasty, but in their own way) - but this borscht is something special.
For memory, I will go over the milestones of the recipe - cut the potatoes into cubes in your favorite size. Keep in mind - to cook it with cabbage for half an hour, so do not grind it.
Half of the bacon, cabbage, carrots, parsley root and beets are cut into strips (for my taste, it's also not worth grinding - why do you need indistinct porridge on a plate?)
Cut the onion into cubes. Why - I explained in this video for 1m50sec:
Process:
Cook the broth in the standard way (very low boil, remove foam, etc.)
We send half of the bacon to the freezer, the other half, cut into strips, we heat in a frying pan: 
We begin to fry the beets in the melted bacon and almost immediately add apple cider vinegar so that the beets do not lose color: 
Melt the butter in another pan, start frying the onions / carrots / parsley root: 
Remove meat with bones from the broth and send cabbage and potatoes there.
Add sugar and tomato paste to the beets.
After 10-15 minutes, the contents of the pans and the chopped meat are sent to the pot with potatoes / cabbage.
Finely chop the garlic / parsley, rub a frozen piece of bacon on a grater and then grind it all in a mortar by adding a pinch of coarse salt.
In total, boil the borscht, after adding potatoes and cabbage to the broth for about half an hour. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, add black pepper and bay leaf to the pan, salt, taking into account that there will be salt in the garlic-parsley dressing.
Turn off the heating, add the dressing, let it brew for 5 minutes under the lid and eat with a grunt of pleasure.
PS.
My friends - I know that there are a million borscht recipes. I know that almost everyone necessarily believes that their borscht is definitely the best. Relax - let William Vasilyevich sleep peacefully - he never and anywhere claimed that the recipe given by him is the only correct one. And I am not saying this.
9 out of 10 points. An excellent borscht, a feature of which is the absence of potatoes and the presence of zucchini and apples.
Cooking 3-4 hours
8-10 servings
Ingredients:
1 kg beef brisket
300 g fresh cabbage
1 large beet
1 small vegetable marrow
1/2 cup cooked beans (you can use beans canned in their own juice)
3-4 tomatoes
2 sour apples
2 tbsp butter
1 onion
1 parsley root
1 carrot
5-6 peas of black pepper
2-3 bay leaves
4 cloves of garlic
1/2 cup sour cream
refined vegetable oil
Preparation:
1. Pour the brisket with 3 liters of cold water, bring to a boil, remove the foam and, without covering, simmer over low heat for about 3 hours, the broth will boil down about 1.5-2 times.
2. Beets, carrots, parsley root, peel and cut into strips. Peel the onion and chop finely. Chop the cabbage.
3. Heat 1 tablespoon in a frying pan. butter, adding a little vegetable to it (so that the butter does not burn), and simmer the chopped beets over medium heat until soft, about 20 minutes. In a separate frying pan, in the same way, heat a mixture of butter and vegetable oil and fry chopped carrots, onions and parsley root over medium heat until soft, 15-20 minutes.
4. At this time, if necessary, peel the zucchini, cut it in half lengthwise and, if it is not young, scrape out the core with coarse seeds. Cut the zucchini pulp and tomatoes into small cubes. Chop the garlic.
5. Strain the finished broth, return to the saucepan and bring to a boil again. Separate the boiled meat from the bones and chop as needed.
6. Put cabbage into boiling broth, cook for 5 minutes. Then put the stewed beets, carrots, onions and parsley in a saucepan, cook for another 5 minutes.
7. At this time, peel and core the apples, then cut them into small cubes and 5 minutes after placing the stewed vegetables in a saucepan with sliced \u200b\u200bcourgettes, tomatoes, meat and beans.
8. Cook for 5 minutes, then add black peppercorns, bay leaf to the borscht and season with salt to taste. Cook for another 5 minutes, add chopped garlic and, after cooking for another 2 minutes, remove from heat and let it brew on the lid for 20 minutes (and the next day it will be even tastier).
9. Pour the finished borsch into plates, season with sour cream and serve.
Borscht according to PokhlebkinSince Pokhlebkin's opinion about borscht does not coincide with all other recipes, there will be a separate article for him ...
An indispensable part of borscht is beets. It gives it basic flavor and color.
As a rule, borscht is cooked in meat, bone or mixed meat and bone broth. A properly prepared broth is the basis of a good borscht. Borsch broth is usually made from brisket, less often from a thin and thick edge or curl. The bones are always pre-crushed along, and the cartilaginous parts are separated. The duration of cooking bones is 4-6 hours, meat - 2-2.5 hours. After the water boils, the broth is continued to cook over low heat. When cooking meat and bone broth, the bones are first boiled, and then, two hours before the end of their cooking, the meat is laid and cooked until cooked, after which the meat is taken out of the broth and the vegetable part of the borscht is prepared in the broth, where the meat is again laid for only 10-15 min until the borscht is fully cooked. By the end of cooking, no more than 1.5 cups of pure broth per serving should remain in the borscht, so at the beginning of cooking, pour at least twice as much water as it is supposed to get broth.
Beef brisket and pork are usually laid in a 2: 1 or 1: 1 ratio. In addition, after the end of cooking the main broth, small amounts of lamb, ham, sausages, and finely chopped homemade sausage are sometimes added to some types of borscht at a rate of 1: 4 in relation to the main borscht meat.
Borscht can also be made with goose or chicken broth (Poltava and Odessa). In this case, the addition of other meat is excluded.
The peculiarity of the preparation of the vegetable part of borscht is the preliminary separate processing of vegetables. Beets, for example, are always stewed separately from other vegetables. First, it is sprinkled with vinegar (or citric acid, lemon juice is added), which is necessary to preserve the red color, put in heated fat (lard, oil) and stew until tender. Sometimes beets are baked or boiled until half cooked in a peel and only then peeled, cut and dipped in broth.
Saute finely chopped onions, carrots and parsley into strips for 15 minutes, while the vegetables should be covered with fat. Before the end of the sautéing, add tomato puree or finely chopped tomatoes to the vegetables and continue to sauté until the fat turns to the color of the tomatoes.
It is very important to consistently lay vegetables in the broth - in strict dependence on the duration of their cooking. Potatoes are laid 30 minutes before the borscht is ready, cabbage - 20 minutes, prepared stewed beets - 15 minutes, browned vegetables (onions, carrots, parsley) - 15 minutes, spices - 5-8 minutes, garlic (separately from the rest of the spices) - in 2 min.
The main type of fat used for borscht is lard. It is pounded or grinded in a mortar with garlic, onions and parsley until a smooth mass is formed and the borscht is seasoned with it 2-3 minutes until cooked.
Most borscht to give them a peculiar sour taste is cooked not only in water, but in kvass-sirovts, in sour beet juice and in beetroot sourdough (infusions), adding them mainly after cooking the meat into the finished broth, trying not to subject it to prolonged boiling.
The borscht, brought to readiness, is put on a very low fire of a gas stove or simply moved to the edge of a regular stove so that it does not get too cold, and let it brew for another 20 minutes. then served on the table.
Thus, cooking borscht takes at least 3 hours, and when boiling in bone broth - even 5-6 hours.
Obligatory vegetables in borscht, in addition to beets, are cabbage, carrots, potatoes, parsley, onions, tomatoes, additional - beans, apples (sour, best green), zucchini, turnip. Vegetables in borscht are cut into strips, with the exception of courgettes and potatoes, which are cut into cubes and large pieces, respectively. Beans are pre-boiled separately, since they are cooked for a long time - more than an hour and they fill the borscht with it 15 minutes before cooking. Turnips are sautéed with carrots. Apples and zucchini are not sautéed, they are laid after the rest of the vegetables as the most pressure cooker, but no later than 10 minutes before readiness.
Some types of borscht are seasoned with still toasted flour to give the borscht liquid a thicker consistency.
Dressing borscht with sour cream after serving is required.
In the several borscht recipes presented here, approximate norms and the range of products used are indicated. The amount of broth in the finished borscht is everywhere 1.5-1.75 liters. This means that you need to take 3 liters of water initially.
Source: V.V. Pokhlebkin. "National cuisines of our peoples": Centerpolygraph; Moscow; 2004
His recipes:
BORSCH UKRAINIAN SIMPLE
500 g beef, 1/4 cabbage, 4 potatoes, 1 large beet, 25 g lard, 25 g butter, 0.5 cups tomato paste or 2 tomatoes, 0.5 cups sour cream, 1 carrot, 1 parsley root, 2 onions, 1 tbsp. spoon of 3% vinegar, 2 teaspoons of sugar, 3 bay leaves, 4-5 cloves of garlic, 3 allspice peas, 5-6 black peppercorns, 1 tbsp. spoonful of parsley.
Borscht is cooked in bone and meat broth, meat is served along with borscht.
1. Stew the beets with vinegar, some lard (or with fat removed from the broth surface), sugar and tomato paste.
2. Onions, carrots, parsley root, cut into strips, fry in butter.
3. Cook potatoes and cabbage in broth for 15 minutes, then add to them the products specified in points 1 and 2, cook for another 10 minutes, add oil and spices, and then season the borsch with parsley and garlic, grated with lard. Season with sour cream before serving.
BORSCH UKRAINIAN TEAM
500 g of beef, 200 g of pork, 100 g of ham, 50 g of lard, 2 liters of kvass? Sirovets, 2 beets, 1/4 head of cabbage, 3 tomatoes, 0.5 cups of sour cream, 0.5 cups of boiled beans, 4 potatoes, 1 turnip, 1 carrot, 1 parsley, 2 onions, 3 bay leaves, 2 allspice peas, 6 black peppercorns, 4 cloves of garlic, 1 teaspoon each of celery, dill, marjoram, parsley, 1 teaspoon of salt.
Cook beef and pork broth on kvass-sirovts in whole or in part. Then put finely chopped ham into it along with the first vegetables. The sequence is the same as for simple borscht (beans are laid last). Beets should not be stewed, but baked separately in a peel, and then peeled and chopped.
BORSCH KIEVSKY
250 g of beef, 250 g of lamb, 1/4 head of cabbage, 4 potatoes, 1 large beet, 0.5 l of beet kvass, 2 tbsp. spoons of beans, 2 sour apples, 2 × 3 tomatoes, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of oil, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of finely chopped bacon, 1? 2 onions, 1 carrot, 1 parsley, 1 tbsp. spoon of parsley, 1 teaspoon of celery, 3 bay leaves, 3 allspice peas, 1/4 teaspoon of red pepper, 0.5 heads of garlic.
Dip the beef in boiling water, pour the beet kvass and boil the broth. Then stew separately: 1) beets with lamb brisket, cut into small pieces; 2) tomatoes in oil; 3) onions, carrots, parsley root.
Then boil cabbage and potatoes in broth until half cooked, add stewed vegetables and cook for another 10-15 minutes, season with boiled beans, and at the very end - garlic grated with lard and chopped parsley.
If by the end of cooking the borscht is not sour enough, add another glass of beet kvass to it.
BORSCH POLTAVSKY
600 g goose or duck, 1 beet, 1/4 head of cabbage, 3 potatoes, 50 g lard, 25 g butter, 1 cup buckwheat flour, 1 egg, 0.5 cups tomato paste or 2 × 3 tomatoes, 1 carrot, 1 parsley, 1 × 2 onions, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of vinegar, 2 × 3 bay leaves, 1 head of garlic, 5 black peppercorns, 0.5 cups of sour cream.
Poltava borscht is cooked in broth made from poultry; it differs from other Ukrainian borscht by the fact that it is seasoned not only with vegetables, but also with dumplings.
Cooking dumplings. In a quarter of a glass of boiling water, dilute 1 tbsp. a spoonful of flour, grind it thoroughly, cool, add an egg, the rest of the flour and knead the dough; if it turns out to be steep, add a little water - the dough should not be steeper than thick sour cream. Take this dough with a teaspoon and dip in boiling salted water; cook dumplings in it until they float up, then discard in a colander. Season borsch with dumplings 5-7 minutes until cooked.
The rest of the cooking procedure for Poltava borscht is the same as for simple Ukrainian.
BORSCH CHERNIGOVSKY
500 g of beef or pork, 1/4 of a head of cabbage, 1 beet, 1 small courgette, 0.5 cups of boiled beans, 3 × 4 tomatoes, 2 sour apples, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of butter, 1 onion, 1 parsley root, 1 carrot, 5-6 black peppercorns, 2-3 bay leaves, 4 cloves of garlic, 0.5 cups of sour cream.
Cook borscht in meat and bone broth. Stew the beets in butter. There is no greasy dressing in this borscht.
A feature of Chernihiv borscht is the presence of zucchini, which, like tomatoes, are not sauteed. Vinegar and flour for dressing are also missing. All the acid comes from tomatoes and apples. The order of dressing with vegetables is usual (see above, in general recommendations). Tomatoes, zucchini and apples are put in the borscht last, before the spices.
BORSCH LVOVSKY
0.5-1 kg of bones (brain, "sugar"), 2 large beets, 5 potatoes, 2-3 sausages, 2 onions, 2 tbsp. spoons of tomato puree, 2 tbsp. tablespoons of 3% vinegar, 1 carrot, 1 parsley, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of butter, 1-2 teaspoons of sugar, 6 black peppercorns, 2 bay leaves, 1 tbsp. a spoonful of parsley, 0.5 cups of sour cream.
Cook with bone broth. Boil the beets until half cooked in the peel, then add vinegar, peel, cut into strips and simmer with tomato puree for 20-30 minutes in oil. Saute carrots, onions, parsley separately. Put potatoes in the broth, then beets and the rest of the roots, spices and sugar. Add sausages fried in butter or lard, cut into small pieces into the almost finished borscht.
Kvass and beet flavor for borsch
The best Ukrainian borscht is cooked on beet infusions and kvass. Below are several recipes for such kvass and infusions.
Simple beet infusion... Grate peeled beets, pour boiled water and put in a warm place for 3-4 days. The ratio of beets to water (by weight) is 1: 2.
Beet brewed infusion... Grate the peeled beets on a coarse grater, pour a glass of hot meat broth, add citric acid and bring to a boil over high heat. Let it brew for 30 minutes.
Beet and bread kvass. Cut 0.5 kg of black bread into slices, pour 1.5 liters of warm boiled water, put 6 pcs. peeled and chopped beets, let it brew for 2 days (in the daytime in the sun, at night in a warm place), stir frequently. On the third day, strain, after which the kvass will be ready for use in borscht.
Severe kvass. To prepare this kvass for 2 liters of water, take 0.5 kg of rye flour and 10 g of yeast, 1 - 2 tbsp. Dissolve tablespoons of flour with yeast in warm water (about 1-1.5 cups) and ferment (sourdough). Pour the remaining flour with hot water, knead the dough until thick sour cream and put in a warm place.
Add sourdough to the dough, dilute with warm water (until the consistency of thick kvass). Top up with water as you use it (0.5 l per 1 l of used liquid).
BORSCH STAROLITOVSKY
500-750 g of beef (brisket), 300 g of ham, 100 g of smoked pork lard, 10 dry porcini mushrooms, 2 beets, 1 head of kohlrabi, 1 carrot, 2 large turnips, 1 Antonov apple, 0.5 l of beet brine or beetroot kvass or 0.5 l of caraway kvass, 1 onion, 0.5-0.75 cups of sour cream, 1 parsley, 1 teaspoon of dry marjoram, 1-2 tbsp. tablespoons of fresh dill, 0.5 tsp of caraway seeds.
For the sorcerer dough: 1 - 1.5 cups of flour, 1 egg, 2 yolks, 0.5 teaspoons of salt, 1-3 tbsp. tablespoons of onion juice (1 onion).
For mushroom filling: boiled mushrooms, 2 eggs, 1 onion, 1 tbsp. spoon of oil.
For meat filling: 250 g of meat, 100 g of lard, 2 teaspoons of marjoram, 1 onion, 0.5 teaspoon of black pepper.
1. Boil the meat part of the borscht with onion, 0.5 carrots and parsley until the meat is tender, remove it from the broth. Divide the beef in two. Make minced meat from one of them, cut the other together with ham into small equal pieces, as for okroshka.
2. Bake beets until half cooked in a peel, peel, cut into strips; turnips, cabbage, apple cut into strips, combine with beets and boil in meat broth.
3. Boil the mushrooms separately. Combine the broth with the broth, and use the sorcerer for the filling.
Cook sorcerer: Knead a cool unleavened dough, roll it into a layer 1-2 mm thick, cut into squares (4x4 cm) and form small dumplings from them (sorcerer), filling half of them with mushroom filling, and the other half with fried lard cubes with a slight addition of minced meat from boiled beef; sorcerer, stuffed with mushrooms, fry in oil, and do not fry stuffed with meat and bacon.
Add kvass to the meat and mushroom broth with seasoned vegetables, bring to a boil, add first raw, and then after 3 - 4 minutes the fried sorcerer and after they are ready, after 5-7 minutes, put boiled meat and spices and keep on low heat for another 3-4 minutes
Then remove from heat and season with sour cream and dill.
Everybody cooks Ukrainian borsch. And for all, it turns out delicious and beautiful. But according to V.V. Pokhlebkin's recipe, the borscht turned out to have a completely different taste than I'm used to. Words cannot convey this. Need to try.
Ingredient List
- beef - 500 g
- cabbage - 1/2 head of cabbage
- potatoes - 4 pieces
- beets - 1 piece
- butter - 25 g
- tomato - 2 pieces
- sweet bell pepper - 1 PC
- tomato paste - 2 tbsp spoons
- carrots - 1 pc
- onions - 2 pieces
- vinegar 3% - 1 tbsp. the spoon
- sugar - 2 tsp
- bay leaf - 3 pcs
- garlic - 4-5 pieces
- allspice - 3 peas
- black pepper - 5-6 peas
- salt to taste
- parsley - 1 bunch
- sour cream - to taste
- dill - to taste
Cooking method
Pour cold water over the beef bone. Let the water boil. Then drain the water, rinse the bone, fill with fresh water. After boiling, remove the heat to the smallest. Cook the broth for 3 hours.
Then add beef, whole onion and peeled carrots and simmer the broth for another 2 and a half hours.
Remove the fat from the broth, put in a frying pan.
On this fat, stew the beets, cut into strips. Add vinegar, sugar and tomato paste to the beets.
In another frying pan in butter, fry chopped onions and carrots, chopped into strips.
Cut the bell pepper into small cubes and add to the carrots and onions.
Grind tomatoes, add to overcooking. Simmer until liquid evaporates.
Place the diced potatoes in the broth.
After 5 minutes, add the chopped cabbage. 15 minutes after laying the cabbage, add the stewed beets and tomato frying to the broth. Cook for another 10-15 minutes.
Add finely chopped boiled beef.
Then add spices. Cook for 5 minutes.
Grate the garlic with parsley and season the borscht. Salt.
After 2 minutes, turn off the stove and leave the borscht under the lid to infuse. Serve borscht no earlier than 20-30 minutes later. Before serving, season the borsch with sour cream and finely chopped dill.