How to cook borscht the simplest recipe. Recipes for beginners: how to cook delicious borscht. Classic borscht with beef broth

Borscht is a very mysterious and unusual dish, the methods of preparation of which are still debated. In different Slavic countries, borscht is cooked in its own way - with sausages, smoked meats, fish, horseradish, zucchini, beans and even apples. Every family has its own secrets of delicious borscht, which are passed down from generation to generation, but one thing remains unchanged - the love for this amazingly tasty dish, which is impossible to resist. Small children also love it, so cookbooks for newborns contain tips and recommendations for preparing this soup for infants. Now borscht has become almost an international dish, and if you want to please your family with borscht, choose any recipe - Ukrainian with pampushki, Moldavian with chicken, Starolithian 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 aromatic.

Borscht starts with broth

Borscht is usually cooked in a strong meat broth made from good beef, pork or chicken, and if you decide to use beef, use 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 make do with minced meat and stew, and some manage to cook a vegetarian version of real Ukrainian borscht. If you are making meat broth, simmer it for as long as possible to create a richer broth. Boil the bones for 5–6 hours, and the meat for about 2.5 hours, just remember to skim off the foam. During the cooking process, you can add an onion, carrots, celery and a bunch of herbs to the meat to enrich the taste of the broth. After cooking is complete, 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 has been cooked, it’s time to add beets to it - it is the presence of beets that distinguishes real borscht from other first courses. An 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 beets can be added to the broth long before the meat is ready, or, by boiling it in the peel and cutting into pieces, add it to the soup at any stage of cooking borscht. You can put half a teaspoon of sugar in a saucepan along with the 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, beet brine or tops. Czech housewives let the beets ferment a little in warm water, and in the villages the beets are infused with kvass. To enhance the red color, add a little lemon juice or beet extract 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 borscht with beets!

Tricks with vegetables when cooking borscht

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

At the end of cooking, you can take care of the cabbage by finely chopping it and adding it to the borscht, although some housewives add cabbage immediately after the 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 eater. 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 the skins removed.

Secrets of cooking borscht with frying

Roasting makes it aromatic, rich, and bright, since fried vegetables have a more pleasant taste. Frying is simple to prepare - 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 small amount of flour until it becomes creamy, and only then add chopped carrots, bell peppers and boiled beets. During 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 the vegetables; for piquancy, you can add sugar and garlic.

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

When I was collecting recipes for preparing Ukrainian borscht that I knew for this article, I was amazed at their diversity. There are as many borschts as there are Ukrainian regions and towns, even more. Of course, I won’t tell you about them all; I’ll choose the very best.

But most importantly, I will try to answer the question: what are the principles for preparing this amazingly popular dish? Its secrets, rules and ingredients? Why doesn’t every housewife make real Ukrainian borscht - really tasty and “the one”. Legendary.

Ukrainian borscht recipe - what's included?

Bouillon, most often beef. But the broth can be prepared from any other meat - pork, lamb, rabbit, poultry, as well as offal, sausages and even canned meat. By the way, you can combine different types of meat, for example, fatty pork with goose and dietary beef brisket.

A 3-liter saucepan will use half a kilo of meat bones.

Delicious borscht is made from fish (unexpectedly?), both sea and river, and even canned. And I assure you, it will not be an ear, but real Ukrainian borscht. Popular recipes for making borscht with mushroom and bean broth. But it’s better not to talk about vegetarian recipes in the presence of gourmets; they are not nutritionists and may misunderstand you.

Kvass broth . Do you know how Ukrainian borscht was prepared in Hetman Ukraine? Real Ukrainian borscht was once cooked not with broth, but with kvass. Imagine: raw meat, beets and sautéed vegetables with roots are poured with kvass, salted and peppered, flavored with sugar and put on fire. This delicious brew sits on the fire exactly until it stops producing foam (which, of course, needs to be skimmed off). Then the kvass with the ingredients goes into the oven (apparently, before the stove?) and cooks over low heat for 4 hours. At the very end (in 15-20 minutes) add lard, crushed with garlic, and sour cream.

Vegetables. Recipes for preparing Ukrainian borscht include the following obligatory vegetables: beets (in Ukrainian “buryak”), potatoes, fresh white cabbage and carrots, onions, tomatoes (tomatoes or paste, sauce, juice), garlic. Less commonly used are beans, peppers (bitter and bell peppers), leeks, green peas, eggplants, and zucchini.

Roots, fresh herbs : parsley, dill, less often celery, parsnips and dry herbs, popular in the family as seasonings. Herbs and seasonings can be added as.

Seasonings. I know one Georgian family in which the hostess prepares Ukrainian borscht with Georgian seasonings: utskho suneli and cilantro. Another friend throws rosemary in there. It turns out delicious. But this is exotic. Black pepper, rarely allspice and cloves are usually added. Bay leaf, of course.

Lard, bacon . It is believed that lard should be old and “smelly”, but more on that later.

How to choose and prepare meat for Ukrainian borscht

Choose

If you decide to cook Ukrainian meat borscht, buy bones with meat from the front and hind legs of the animal at the butcher shop. Do you know the difference between marrow bones and sugar bones? Marrow ones are those that are lower from the joint (bone marrow is visible in them), sugar ones are higher. Both types are suitable for us, but marrow bones are preferable.

An excellent choice is brisket, which has the perfect combination of meat, fat and bones, and drumstick, which has a high content of connective tissue containing gelatin. Bone broth prepared from this part of the animal carcass has a very strong aroma and taste.

Let's prepare

In order for the borscht to turn out tasty, the bones must be chopped so that the bone marrow finds a “way out” and mixes with the broth. Moreover, it doesn’t matter what kind of meat you make the broth from, the approach to bones for beef, pork, lamb or duck and turkey is the same.

How to get rich broth in an economical way?

Broths have such an unpleasant feature - foam. In all the recipes you can read the same thing: that it needs to be removed, removed and removed. Is there a more economical way? Fortunately, there is.

So, boil water in a saucepan. Place the meat there in one piece and boil again over high heat. When it boils again, drain the water, rinse the meat thoroughly, then put it back on the fire, now filling it with cold water.

This is where all “written” recipes begin. And we continue to prepare Ukrainian borscht, saving ourselves from the need to “bother” with foam. In this case, the meat was not cooked, the internal juices were still in it, and now we had access to it without unnecessary “garbage” and aftertaste.

The fact that the water is cold is important. And you don’t have to be afraid to add salt. Both conditions are for obtaining a rich broth.

Note. As for when it is better to salt the broth, the spears have been broken for a long time. The main thing: salt promotes the release of juices (therefore we recommend doing this at the beginning), but it slows down the cooking time (boiling) of the product, which is why many people add salt before removing it from the heat. Choose: if you need an excellent broth, add salt at the beginning, if you prefer tasty tender meat, then at the end.

When the broth boils again, again, for the last time, remove the foam. Now add 2 whole peppers to the broth - a bitter pod and a sweet bell pepper, a whole onion (peeled or with it, you can “in a stocking”) - then we will throw away both the onion and the pepper.* At this stage (and not at the end) our recipe for Ukrainian borscht instructs to throw a bay leaf. Then close the lid and leave for 2-3 hours on low heat.

When the meat is cooked, take it out and cut into pieces. Throw away the onion and peppers. And we will add prepared vegetables to the broth.

*Instead of live peppers, you can use a few allspice peas.

• More about the tricks of preparing this dish and its properties:.

Real Ukrainian borscht is cooked thick, not empty!

Real Ukrainian borscht is thick borscht. Thickness can be achieved in different ways.

Method 1. For example, potatoes. To do this, they put it in the borscht twice: first, finely chopped (2 pieces), so that it boils, giving the broth that same thickness, and then larger, so that it remains “in the form of potatoes.” It will take 4-5 pieces for everything, depending on the size.

Method 2. Another way to achieve the desired thickness for borscht is to add a little sauteed flour to it. Flour or semolina is fried with ghee/vegetable butter and poured into the broth, usually at the very end, before adding crushed lard.

How to prepare beets for Ukrainian borscht

Beets are prepared in different ways. But there are also general points, and they are the most important. First of all, add vinegar or citric acid to it. Firstly, this will preserve the vegetable’s bright, original color, and the borscht will never look “faded.” Secondly, vinegar will add a pleasant sourness to the dish. Thirdly, it will create an interesting effect - it caramelizes the beets: having become soft on the inside, it will remain hard on the outside. Very cute and tasty effect.

So, we added vinegar, salt and sugar to taste, and now fry (passerate) the beets in a saucepan, then add a little clear broth and simmer. The beets for the bright red, authentic Ukrainian borscht are ready. Just remember that she gives way to the potatoes.

Note. You can add a couple of dried prunes to the beets. Or you can ferment the beets first.

How to cook pickled beets. The beets are peeled, cut into thin slices and placed in a glass jar. Then all this should be poured with cold boiled water, close the jar with a lid and leave for a couple of days in the refrigerator.

Pickled beets are used in borscht along with juice. Fresh or previously (2 days) kept in cold water is added to it in an amount of 1:1. It’s so tricky, but it turns out very tasty.

More about beet kvass and its preparation. And about how to properly cook beets -

Vegetables for Ukrainian borscht - further on the list

Sauté carrots, onions and tomatoes separately!

Carrot until orange-golden, along with the roots, onion until golden brown. It is best to sauté in ghee. If you are preparing dietary or vegetarian borscht, use vegetable borscht.

Tomatoes. If these are fresh tomatoes, pour boiling water over them, remove the skin and pass through a meat grinder. Ideally, remove the seeds from the tomatoes and then add them to the frying pan. If it is tomato paste, then sauté it immediately by adding a little broth.

Fresh cabbage you can mash it with a rolling pin, and fermented hold in a hot frying pan for a couple of minutes, stirring. Then it will lose all its hardness.

Note: You can, of course, cut vegetables however you like, even into rings or into logs. But it is best to cut potatoes into cubes, beets on a coarse grater, and all other vegetables into thin strips. It’s been tested, and for some reason it tastes better.

Mushrooms. The given recipe for preparing Ukrainian borscht contains neither mushrooms nor beans. However, if you like borscht with mushroom broth or just dried mushrooms added to it, pre-soak them for 3-4 hours.

Beans It’s better to soak it overnight. And cook separately from all other vegetables because it takes a lot of time.

The order of adding products when cooking Ukrainian borscht

Let's make a reminder so as not to confuse anything.

So, the potatoes will go first, followed by white cabbage about 5 minutes later, if the heads of cabbage are “old”. If the recipe calls for fresh or pickled cabbage, it should be added along with the beets, not before.

Note: the potatoes are added before the acid (tomatoes, such as vinegar or sauerkraut) is added. The fact is that it “compacts” our starchy vegetable and makes it rough and tasteless.

When the potatoes and cabbage are cooked, add the remaining vegetables and roots. If the recipe for Ukrainian borscht contains toasted flour, then use that too. Keep on fire for another 5-7-10 minutes.

Finally, the finishing touch is lard, crushed in a mortar along with garlic, dill, parsley, green peas and salt. Definitely old yellow lard, which evokes unkind aesthetic feelings.

In some recipes for preparing Ukrainian borscht, preference is given to bacon. Well, it's a matter of taste.

We put the lard into the almost finished borscht and increase the heat. As soon as it boils, turn it off immediately.

Let the borscht sit for half an hour. Then we try and adjust:

add sugar, salt, spices (black pepper, cloves, sweet peas), other dry herbs, vinegar - everything that we need (if not enough). Then we insist some more. Pour into plates, with sour cream and chopped herbs. Serve pampushki with borscht.

Preparing pampushki for real borscht

Dumplings- These are round buns made from yeast dough, doused with garlic sauce.

We prepare the dough from flour, warm yeast and butter mixed with sugar. We make small buns no more than 10 cm and bake in the oven.

For the garlic gravy: crushed garlic with a pestle, salt, water or vegetable oil.

That's all, actually. We prepared Ukrainian borscht with pampushki. Bon appetit!

Other national dishes:

Recipe of borsch- it's just a stumbling block. First of all, because there are many different variations of the borscht recipe - Ukrainian, Poltava, Hetman, Moscow, naval, Kiev, Siberian - it would take too long to list.

Borscht There are beef, pork or lamb broth, or duck, beet kvass, borscht with beans, with pampushki, with mushrooms - and this is just a tiny part of a long, long list of different borschts.

However, no matter what kind of borscht exists, the most common is ordinary homemade borscht, and for every cook borsch it turns out to be yours.

Here is one of the options homemade borscht- plain, without donuts, grated with garlic, tomato paste, beans and other additional ingredients.

For homemade borscht you will need

5-6 liters per pan.

• Beef brisket. 1 kg.
• Cabbage. 1.5 kg.
• Beet. 3 medium.
• Carrot. 2-3 pcs.
• Tomatoes. 300-400 gr.
• Onion. 2 medium onions.
• Potato. 600-700 gr.
• Salt. Taste.
• Ground black pepper. Taste.
• Grape or apple vinegar. 5-6%. 1-2 tablespoons. Can be replaced with lemon juice.
• Garlic. To serve.
• Sour cream. To serve.
• Greens - onion, parsley, dill - for serving.

Cooking homemade borscht.

Let's start by preparing the broth.

Pour cold water into the pan. For a 5-6 liter pan, 3½-4 liters of water, respectively. Some of the water will evaporate during cooking.

Place a piece of beef brisket or a cut with a marrow bone into the pan. Immediately put one whole peeled beet there.

I don't put any carrots, onions, parsley, parsnip or celery roots in the broth, but no one is stopping you from doing so depending on your personal preferences.

Bring the water to a boil over high heat, reduce the heat to a level sufficient for a very low simmer and carefully skim off the foam.

Cook the meat and beets for one and a half to two hours.

For a thicker soup base, you can add 1-2 whole peeled large potatoes to the broth. Boil the potatoes in the broth until fully cooked, then remove the potatoes, place them on a plate, add a couple of ladles of broth and mash the potatoes into a puree using a masher. Then put this puree back into the pan and continue cooking the borscht.

About 35-40 minutes after starting to cook the broth, we’ll start making the borscht dressing. As is known X good borscht is cooked in a frying pan .

Cut the onion into quarter rings.

Cut the carrots into small strips.

In a large frying pan over medium heat, heat 4-5 tablespoons of odorless vegetable oil and put the onions and carrots in the frying pan, stir and add a little salt.

When the onions and carrots are slightly softened, add freshly ground black pepper and mix again.

While the onions and carrots are frying, cut the beets into small strips.

Add the beets to the frying pan along with the onions and carrots and stir.

Cover the pan with a lid and wait for the beets to soften slightly.

Then pour in 30-50 ml of grape or apple cider vinegar 5-6% and mix. You can use lemon juice instead of vinegar, although I feel a citrus flavor in the finished borscht and I don’t really like it.

If the tomatoes are acidic enough, their own acid may also be enough.

Acid is needed to ensure that the color of the borscht remains dark and rich, and not bright red or red. But the color also depends on the cooking time.

Close the pan with a lid again and simmer the beets for 20-25 minutes.

During this time, cut the tomatoes into small pieces. I usually don’t remove the skin from tomatoes, but you can do it if you want.

Add the tomatoes to the frying pan with the beets.

Stir, add salt to taste, a teaspoon of sugar - don’t worry, it won’t be noticeable in the borscht, but will simply add richness to the taste.

Close the lid again and leave to simmer for about 15 minutes. If the moisture from the pan has already evaporated and the borscht dressing has begun to fry, add a ladle of broth from the pan.

After a few minutes, when the tomatoes have released their juice and become soft, mix everything again and adjust with salt and sugar, if the dressing is still too sour for your taste.

We cut the cabbage at our own discretion, I like small and not very wide strips.

Cut the potatoes into small cubes.

At this point the broth is ready. salt the broth to taste, taking into account that some salt is already in the dressing.

We take the beets boiled in it out of the broth. Let it cool a little.

If your cabbage is young, it will not take long to cook. Accordingly, first add chopped potatoes to the broth.

If the cabbage is autumn, it will take longer to cook than the potatoes, so we put the cabbage in the broth first.

In both cases, the difference between the time of laying cabbage and potatoes is 10 minutes, regardless of which vegetable is laid first.

Grate the boiled beets on a fine grater.

And put the grated beets back into the pan.

Mix.

Bring the potatoes and cabbage to readiness. The potatoes should be completely cooked, but the cabbage should still be slightly crispy inside.

As soon as the vegetables are ready, pour a couple of ladles of broth into the pan with the dressing. Using a spatula, deglaze the pan, scraping off any brown marks from the bottom.

Place all the roast into the pan with the borscht.

Stir, bring to a boil and let simmer gently for 5-7 minutes.

There is no need to boil the borscht longer, since with prolonged boiling the color of the borscht first becomes bright red and then begins to turn red.

Remove the pan with borscht from the heat, cover with a lid and leave alone for at least 20 minutes. If you cook in a large 5-6 liter saucepan, then during this time the borscht will not have time to cool. But it will brew.

I usually add thinly sliced ​​garlic to the plate.

Serve on the table. And traditionally, borscht is served with a glass of cold vodka.

Admit it, you love borscht. Look around, make sure that there are no friends or nutritionists nearby, and admit that no matter how much you want to lose weight, it is simply impossible to deny yourself a plate of fiery red, hot borscht, exuding breathtaking aromas. Sprinkled with finely chopped herbs and garlic, seasoned with a spoonful of rich sour cream, and served with fresh, hot donuts, borscht was and remains one of the most beloved first hot dishes throughout almost the entire territory of the former Soviet Union.

Despite many disagreements, the credit for the invention of this dish should be given to the Ukrainians, if only because it is in Ukrainian cuisine that there is probably the largest variety of recipes for preparing borscht. In each Ukrainian region, and sometimes in each family, borscht is prepared in its own way. And, as is the case with most other dishes of folk cuisine, a significant role in the variety of recipes for preparing borscht is played by the variety of tastes and the flight of imagination of the housewives who prepare it.

It would seem difficult to tell something new about a dish that is prepared at least sometimes in every family. Almost every housewife, every cook, every cook knows how to cook borscht. But even in preparing such a common dish, there are always little tricks and secrets that you might accidentally overlook. And today “Culinary Eden” has tried to collect for you the most important and interesting tips that will help you prepare truly tasty and aromatic borscht.

1. How to cook borscht? The basis of any borscht is properly prepared broth. The best broth for borscht is considered to be broth made from beef and pork brisket. in a 2:1 ratio. However, borscht can be prepared with other broths. For example, for Kyiv borscht you will need beef and lamb, and for Poltava or Odessa borscht you will need goose or duck broth. Let's try to cook broth for simple Ukrainian borscht. Rinse thoroughly and chop 500 g of beef and 300 g of pork belly into not too large pieces. Place the meat in a saucepan and add cold water so that there is twice as much broth as is expected. Place the pan on the fire and let the water boil. Try to remove the foam as thoroughly as possible. As soon as the water boils, reduce the heat to low, cover the pan with a lid and simmer your broth over low heat for 2-2.5 hours. The less your broth boils, the longer the meat simmers in low-boiling water, the tastier and richer the borscht broth will end up.

2. The second important feature of preparing borscht is the preliminary separate preparation of vegetables before adding them to the broth. Beets should be stewed in advance, separately from other vegetables. To preserve the bright red color of the beets, sprinkle them with a little vinegar or lemon juice. Stew the beets, cutting them into small cubes or strips, placing them in well-heated pork fat or butter. In some cases, beets can be boiled or baked whole in their peels, and then peeled, chopped and added to the broth. The sequence of adding vegetables is also extremely important when cooking borscht. According to V. Pokhlebkin, the order of laying vegetables is as follows: “Potatoes are laid 30 minutes before the borscht is ready, cabbage - 20 minutes, prepared stewed beets - 15 minutes. Sautéed vegetables (onions, carrots, parsley) - 15 minutes. Spices - 5-8 minutes, garlic (separate from other spices) - 2 minutes before the end of cooking.”

3. To add a special flavor to borscht, you can use almost any of your favorite spices. However, key spices are parsley root and greens (fresh or dried), black pepper (ground or whole peas), bay leaf. You can also experiment by adding celery root and greens, dill, and coriander. Of course, we should not forget about garlic. Garlic is best added at the very end of cooking. It should first be finely chopped and crushed in a mortar or simply mashed with the flat side of a knife blade. A classic Ukrainian spicy dressing for borscht can be called a dressing based on lard. Chop 200 grams into small pieces. soft lard, 3 - 4 cloves of garlic and a few sprigs of parsley. Mix everything together and pound in a mortar or blender until you obtain a smooth, homogeneous mass. Add the resulting seasoning to your borscht 2-3 minutes before it’s ready.

4. To give your borscht a special sour taste and bright color, you can add pickled beet juice, beet starter, or just fresh beet juice to the broth. You can also prepare a special beetroot dressing in advance, which you can then add to the borscht. Rinse one kilogram of beets thoroughly, peel and grate on a coarse grater. Finely chop 1 kg of onions and 1 kg of sweet bell pepper. Place the vegetables in a saucepan, add ½ liter of vegetable oil, ½ liter of tomato sauce, 2 tbsp. spoons of salt, 1 glass of vinegar and 1 glass of sugar. Simmer everything together over low heat for 40 minutes, stirring frequently. Make sure the dressing doesn't burn! Place the finished dressing in jars and store in the refrigerator.

5. The most widespread recipe for borscht is the recipe for Ukrainian simple borscht. Let's try to cook it the way V. Pokhlebkin recommends. Cook a strong broth from 500 g of beef brisket. Peel one large beet, cut into cubes and stew in pork fat, adding 1 tbsp. l. vinegar, 2 tbsp. l. sugar and ½ cup tomato paste. Cut two onions, one carrot and one parsley root into strips and fry in butter. Chop ¼ head of cabbage, cut 4 potatoes into cubes. Lower add potatoes and cabbage to the broth and cook for 15 minutes. Then add stewed beets and fried vegetables to them and cook for another 10 minutes. At the end of cooking, add your favorite spices, herbs and a dressing of lard, garlic and parsley. Cook for a couple more minutes and remove from heat. Before serving, season your borscht with sour cream.

6. Kiev borscht is rightfully considered even more tasty and aromatic. It is cooked in beef and lamb broth, which gives it a characteristic taste and aroma. Cook a strong broth from 250 grams of beef, adding ½ liter of beet kvass or pickled beet juice to the water. Peel and grate one large beet on a coarse grater and simmer it along with 250 gr. lamb breast, cut into small pieces. Stew three tomatoes in 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Cut the onion, carrot and parsley root into strips and fry in butter. Chop ¼ head of cabbage, cut 4 potatoes into cubes. Dip the cabbage and potatoes into the boiling broth and cook for 15 minutes, then add all the stewed and fried vegetables and lamb and cook for another 10 minutes. Add three bay leaves, 3 allspice peas and ¼ teaspoon ground red pepper. Season the borscht with two tbsp. tablespoons of boiled beans and cook everything together for another 10 minutes. At the very end of cooking, season the borscht with lard, garlic and parsley. Serve hot, adding sour cream.

7. Poltava borscht cooked in poultry broth is very tasty. In addition to the broth, Poltava borscht is also distinguished by the fact that it is seasoned not only with vegetables, but also with dumplings. Cook borscht according to the recipe for simple Ukrainian borscht in broth made from 600 grams of goose or duck. Prepare in advance dumplings. To do this, dilute 1 tbsp. spoon of flour in ¼ cup of boiling water. Mash thoroughly and cool. Add one egg and ½ cup of buckwheat or wheat flour to the cooled mixture. Knead the dough. The consistency of the dough should resemble not too thick sour cream. Take the finished dough with a teaspoon and place it in boiling, salted water. Cook the dumplings until they float to the surface, then drain in a colander. Add the finished dumplings to your borscht 5 minutes before the end of cooking. Serve Poltava borscht with sour cream and finely chopped parsley.

8. For lovers of fish dishes, we can recommend trying to cook borscht with fish broth. Boil 500 g of fish fillet in 6 glasses of strong fish broth made from heads and fins. Cut one small beet, one onion, parsley and celery root into strips and fry in butter. Add ½ cup of broth to the vegetables and simmer everything together for 10-15 minutes. Cut 50 grams of sorrel and spinach into strips. Place 4 potatoes, cut into slices, into the boiling broth and cook for 10 minutes, then add green vegetables and cook for another 10 minutes. Add the stewed vegetables, salt, add spices to taste and cook everything together for 5 minutes. When serving, place a piece of fish fillet on each plate of borscht. Season the borscht with finely chopped boiled eggs and sour cream, sprinkle with fresh herbs.

9. Vegetarians were not left without their own borscht recipe. Boil 1.5 liters of water or mushroom broth. Place peeled whole beets in it and cook until tender. Cut one onion and one carrot into strips and simmer in butter. Remove the finished beets from the broth, and add two diced potatoes and a glass of finely shredded cabbage to the broth. Cook everything together for 10-15 minutes, then add the stewed vegetables and grated grate boiled beets. Cook for another 10 minutes, then add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of tomato paste, salt, sugar and spices to taste. Cook everything together for another 5 minutes and remove from heat. Serve topped with sour cream and sprinkled with fresh herbs.

10. Any borscht will seem even more delicious if you serve it not with plain bread, but with fresh, hot pampushki - buns made from yeast dough with garlic sauce. It's not at all difficult to prepare them. Dilute a teaspoon of dry yeast with a small amount of warm water with a pinch of sugar. Let stand for 10-15 minutes. Pour the yeast into a bowl, add a glass of warm milk, a teaspoon of salt, a tablespoon of sugar and 3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Gradually add 3 cups of flour and knead into a loose dough. Knead it thoroughly, grease with vegetable oil and leave in a warm place for one hour. The dough should double in size. Punch down the risen dough and cut into small round buns. Place the buns on a baking sheet, let them rise for 15 minutes, brush with beaten egg and bake in an oven preheated to 180 degrees for 20-25 minutes. While the buns are baking, prepare the garlic sauce. Crush six cloves of garlic with a teaspoon of salt, add a tablespoon of vegetable oil and stir thoroughly. Then add a tablespoon of water and stir until smooth. Remove the finished buns from the oven and dip them hot in the garlic sauce. Serve immediately with a plate of hot, aromatic borscht.

We sincerely hope that our advice will more than once help you please your friends and loved ones with real, tasty and excitingly aromatic borscht. And “Culinary Eden” on its pages is always ready to offer you many new and interesting ideas and recipes on how to cook borscht, this delicious and satisfying dish loved by many.

The standard dish of Slavic cuisine is considered to be borscht - red, rich and thick enough to hold a spoon in it. Each housewife has her own recipe and cooking secrets, but below are step-by-step photos and recipes for this soup, which can rightfully be called classic.

Classic borscht with beets and cabbage

Classic borscht is made from red beets with the addition of fresh cabbage; the base of the dish is meat broth. It is advisable to choose fattier varieties of meat, unless the dish is intended to be dietary or lean.

Cooking time: 2 hours 30 minutes.

Servings: 10.

3 hours 25 min. Seal

Bon appetit!

Step-by-step recipe for classic Ukrainian borscht

Ukrainian borscht is famous all over the world, incl. thanks to the classics of literature who glorified him in their works. This is a rich meat soup with a rich red color. As a rule, in addition to meat, lard is also added to Ukrainian borscht for nutritional value, which makes the dish very high in calories, but incredibly tasty.

Cooking time: 2 hours.

Servings: 6.

Ingredients:

• Beef on the bone – 0.6 kg;
• Beets – 1 pc. (large);
• Small head of cabbage – 1 piece;
• Potatoes – 3-4 pcs.;
• Carrots – 90 g;
• Onions – 60 g;
• Parsley and celery root - 1 pc.;
• Garlic cloves – 3 pcs.;
• Pork lard – 20 g;
• Full-fat sour cream – 130 g;
• Tomato paste or sauce – 1-2 tbsp. l.;
• Wheat flour – 1 tbsp. l.;
• Food vinegar – 1 tbsp. l.;
• Bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
• Allspice – 4-5 peas;
• Ground black pepper - to your taste;
• Parsley, dill - a couple of sprigs;
• Granulated sugar - to taste;
• Odorless sunflower oil - for frying;
• Butter 82.5% - 50 g.

Cooking process:

1. Boil broth in meat. When cooking, remove the foam that forms on the surface from the coagulated protein with a slotted spoon. Separately, collect the fat from the meat from the surface of the broth in a mug.
2. Peel the beets, rinse, grate coarsely or cut into thin strips. Place in a frying pan, pour in vinegar, add granulated sugar, tomato paste and fat collected from the broth. Simmer the beets under the lid until partially cooked; if necessary, you can add a little broth from the pan.
3. Finely chop the celery root and parsley, peel the carrots, rinse and grate on a medium grater. Cut the onion into half rings. Sauté the entire mass with the addition of vegetable oil or lard in a preheated frying pan until golden brown.
4. Add pre-peeled potatoes to the boiling broth, which need to be cut into medium cubes, add finely shredded cabbage and cook over medium heat for about 10-15 minutes. After this, add the prepared beet mass and add the roast, allspice peas, salt and throw in a bay leaf.
5. Melt the butter in a separate frying pan, fry the flour in it and pour in a little broth. Stir and pour into soup, cook for about 5 minutes.
6. Season the borscht with finely chopped lard, grated with chopped garlic and parsley, and let it boil. Turn off and leave to infuse, covered, for about 15-20 minutes.
7. Pour the finished dish into soup bowls, add pieces of cooked meat, chopped herbs and sour cream.

Bon appetit!

Delicious rich borscht with beef

Borscht cooked with red meat is especially satisfying. It replaces a full meal and fills you up for a long time. When cooked, all the beneficial substances contained in beef go into the broth and are quickly absorbed by the body.

Cooking time: 1 hour 50 min.

Servings: 9.

Ingredients:

• Beef – 450 g;
• Carrots – 1 pc.;
• Potatoes – 3 pcs. (average);
• Beets – 2 pcs.;
• Cabbage – 200 g;
• Sweet red pepper – 1 pc.;
• Tomato sauce – 3 tbsp. l.;
• Large onion – 1 head;
• Granulated sugar – 1.5 tsp;
• Bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
• Garlic clove – 1 pc.;
• Seasonings for soup – 2 tsp;
• Ground black pepper, ground red pepper, coriander - 0.4 tsp each;
• Salt - to your taste;
• Unscented sunflower oil – 2-3 tbsp. l.

Cooking process:

1. Rinse the meat (on the bone or in pieces) in hot water and place in a saucepan. Pour cold water from the filter into it, bring to a boil, while skimming off the foam with a slotted spoon. Pour in a mixture of seasonings so that the meat is saturated with the aromas of spices, and add salt. Leave on medium heat for 1.5 hours.
2. Meanwhile, peel and cut the onion into small cubes. Add half the onion to the meat and leave the other half.
3. Cut the beets very thin into strips.
4. Pour vegetable oil into a frying pan, add the beets and the second half of the onion. Fry over medium heat until golden brown.
5. Peel the carrots, rinse and also cut into thin strips. Wash the sweet pepper, remove the green stem and seeds, and finely chop. Add carrots and peppers to the vegetables in the pan and fry for about 5 minutes.
6. Lightly salt the roast, add granulated sugar and bay leaf. Add 2-3 scoops of meat broth and simmer everything under the lid until the water has evaporated and the vegetables have softened.
7. Add tomato sauce and garlic, passed through a press, to the frying. You can add a little vinegar so that the beets do not lose their color. Turn off the heat and leave the pan covered.
8. When the meat has boiled for about an hour, cut it and add peeled and washed potatoes to it.
9. Finely chop the cabbage and place in the pan after the potatoes.
10. Remove the meat from the pan, remove it from the bone and cut it into pieces, then return it to the soup.
11. Place the prepared roast into the pan, stir everything and leave to cook for another 5 minutes. Taste the borscht and add salt or seasonings if necessary. If there is no usual sourness, you can add a little more vinegar; if the borscht is sour, you can add a little sugar. Turn off the soup and let it sit.
12. Pour into portions, adding pieces of meat, sour cream, and finely chopped herbs to each plate.

Bon appetit!

A simple recipe for meat borscht with pork

Classic borscht is usually prepared with pork. To do this, choose the fattest part of the meat or add lard. Instead of vinegar, the recipe uses lemon juice.

Cooking time: 2 hours.

Servings: 10.

Ingredients:

• Pork – 0.5 kg;
• White cabbage – 1 small head;
• Beets – 2 pcs.;
• Potatoes – 3 pcs.;
• Onion – 1 head;
• Carrots – 2 pcs. (small);
• Sugar – 2 tsp. without slide;
• Bay leaf – 3 pcs.;
• Lemon – 1 pc.;
• Water – 3 l;
• Fatty butter – 30 g;
• Salt, seasonings, herbs - to your taste.

Cooking process:

1. Place the washed pork, cut into large pieces, into a deep pan. Place on high heat. When the water boils, it must be drained along with the foam that formed during boiling. Rinse the meat and fill with purified water from the filter (3 l). Add bay leaf. Cook the pork for about 40 minutes, skimming off the foam.
2. Peel and rinse vegetables. Coarsely grate the carrots and beets, cut the onion into small cubes.
3. Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat, saute the carrots and beets in it, and add the onions. Add granulated sugar and squeeze in the juice of a quarter of a lemon. If desired, you can add tomato sauce (2 tbsp) or finely chopped large tomato.
4. Pour a scoop of broth from the pan into the frying pan, simmer the mixture over low heat under the lid for about 15 minutes.
5. Chop the cabbage thinly and add it to the broth with the meat, salt everything to taste.
6. Cut the potatoes into cubes and place them in a saucepan with the soup after the cabbage boils.
7. When the potatoes become soft, add the roast to the soup, add seasonings and leave to cook for 5 minutes.
8. Let the borscht brew on the stove with the lid off for about 15 minutes. and serve with sour cream and herbs.

Bon appetit!

Classic borscht with chicken

Borscht made with chicken breast is lower in calories than with fatty meat. This soup will appeal to those who, for whatever reason, have given up eating red meat. Chicken breast cooks faster, so cooking borscht will take less time.

Cooking time: 1 hour.

Servings: 8.

Ingredients:

• Chicken breast – 1 pc. (large);
• Water for broth – 3 l;
• Cabbage - half a head of cabbage;
• Beets – 2 pcs. (small);
• Potatoes – 3-4 pcs.;
• Carrots – 2 pcs.;
• Garlic cloves – 2 pcs.;
• Tomato sauce – 3 tbsp. l.;
• Salt, pepper, seasonings and herbs - of your choice and taste.

Cooking process:

1. Wash the chicken breast and add enough water to cover it entirely. Place the pan over high heat and cook until the meat begins to boil. When the water boils, it must be drained along with the foam and pour 3 liters of water from the filter into the pan. Return the pan to the stove and cook the meat after boiling over low heat, adding a little salt.
2. To fry, peel the vegetables and wash in cold water. Grate the beets and carrots coarsely, cut the onion into cubes. Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil and put vegetables in it, add tomato sauce or paste, fry until soft. Add spices to the fryer.
3. Peel the potatoes, wash and cut into medium-sized cubes. Finely chop the cabbage.
4. About half an hour after draining the first broth, the breast will be cooked. You need to remove the meat from the soup and put cabbage and potatoes there.
5. Cook for 20 minutes. after boiling, and then add the roasted vegetables to the pan and boil the soup again.
6. Remove the cooked chicken from the bones, cut into cubes and place in a pan. Turn off the heat and let the borscht steep for about 20 minutes.
7. Add garlic, passed through a press, and finely chopped greens into the soup. Taste the prepared borscht and add salt or seasonings to taste.

Bon appetit!

Vitamin green borscht with sorrel

Surprisingly, borscht can be cooked even without beets. You can make such an original soup by adding a lot of herbs and chicken eggs to it. Green borscht does not taste like classic borscht, but is not inferior to it in terms of benefits.

Cooking time: 55 min.

Servings: 6.

Ingredients:

• Chicken broth – 1.5 l;
• Parsley – 1 bunch;
• Feathered onions – 1 bunch;
• Sorrel – 1 bunch;
• Medium potatoes – 2 pcs.;
• Eggs C2 – 3 pcs.;
• Onions – 0.5 heads;
• Bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
• Salt, seasonings and spices - to your taste.

Cooking process:

1. Pre-cook chicken broth by adding bay leaf. For borscht, you can use an inexpensive soup set or use thighs and back, if possible with skin.
2. Wash the greens, dry them, chop them. Boil chicken eggs (2 pcs.) until tender and peel. Peel and wash the onions and potatoes.
3. Cut the onion in half, chop half into small cubes. Fry the onion until golden brown in a frying pan with odorless vegetable oil. Cut the eggs into quarters.
4. Place the fried onions and prepared herbs into the pan with the prepared and strained broth.
5. Cut the potatoes into cubes and add to the green borscht. Salt the soup and add any seasonings you wish.
6. After 20 min. Break a washed raw egg into the broth, stir and cook until the egg sets.
7. Add chopped eggs to the soup and remove the pan from the stove.
8. Serve with a slice of bread, seasoning the borscht with a spoonful of thick sour cream.

Bon appetit!

Classic cold borscht made from beets, cucumbers and eggs

Cold borscht, also called beet soup or kholodnik, is a worthy replacement for regular hot borscht, an excellent option for hot summers when you don’t want fatty hot dishes. No meat is used in the preparation, so the soup fits perfectly into the vegetarian menu.

Cooking time: 1 hour 45 minutes.

Servings: 6.

Ingredients:

• Beetroot – 0.5 kg;
• Chicken eggs – 1 pc.;
• Potatoes – 300 g;
• Fresh cucumbers – 220 g;
• Green onion – 1 bunch;
• Dill – 1 bunch;
• Young beet tops – 50 g;
• Sour cream (for serving) – 40 g.

For refueling:

• Purified water – 0.5 l;
• Horseradish – 10 g;
• Sunflower oil – 20 ml;
• Ground black pepper and salt - to your taste;
• Granulated sugar – 10 g;
• Wine, apple or balsamic vinegar – 10 ml.

Cooking process:

1. Wash the beets and potatoes and cook without removing the skin. The potatoes must be removed after 30 minutes, and the beets must be cooked for up to 1 hour.
2. Wash and hard boil the egg. Place the cooked vegetables and egg in cold water and keep there to make it easier to peel later.
3. Peel the beets and cut into strips, while grating a small piece of beets on a medium grater, this will then give a bright color to the broth.
4. Place beets in a saucepan and add water. Let stand like this for 20 minutes.
5. Peel the potatoes, cut into strips. Cut the cucumbers into small strips without peeling. Peel the egg and cut into several pieces.
6. Place the beets in a sieve and let the water drain. Pour odorless sunflower oil into the broth, add horseradish, salt and pepper. Add vinegar and sugar and taste to adjust the acidity of the dish with these ingredients.
7. Wash and dry the greens. Chop the green onions, dill, cut the beet leaves into strips, cut the cuttings into small circles.
8. Arrange the vegetables in plates, pour in the dressing, put a piece of egg in each plate and sprinkle with herbs.
9. Add cold sour cream at the end and serve.

Bon appetit!

Delicious borscht without cabbage

If at the last moment before preparing the planned borscht it turns out that there is no cabbage at home, you can safely skip this ingredient and prepare a wonderful borscht without cabbage on a chicken leg.

Cooking time: 50 min.

Servings: 9.

Ingredients:

• Beetroot – 3 pcs. (small);
• Chicken leg – 1 pc.;
• Carrots – 1 pc.;
• Potatoes – 5 pcs.;
• Water – 1.6 l;
• Onion – 1 head;
• Unscented sunflower oil – 90 g;
• Tomato paste – 1 cup;
• Salt and ground black pepper, seasonings - to your taste;
• Bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
• Garlic cloves – 2 pcs.

Cooking process:

1. Wash the leg, peel and rinse all the vegetables. Place the meat in a pan with chopped potatoes, add water and cook until the food is ready. Salt the broth and skim off the foam that will form during the cooking process.
2. Meanwhile, cut the onions into cubes, grate the carrots on a coarse grater, and cut the beets into small strips. Heat a frying pan with vegetable oil, fry the onions and carrots until light golden brown, then add the beets and fry a little more.
3. Add tomato paste to the pan (you can use homemade tomato preparation if you have it). Simmer covered until soft. You can add 1 tsp. without a mountain of sugar. If the roast starts to burn, pour 1 scoop of broth from the pan into the pan.
4. When the meat and potatoes in the soup are ready, add the roast and cook for about 20 minutes. over low heat.
5. Pass the garlic through a press and add to the borscht along with bay leaf, pepper and spices. If desired, you can add 2-3 peas of allspice.
6. Leave the soup on the turned off stove for 15-20 minutes so that the borscht infuses and the flavor of the seasonings has time to develop.
7. Serve the dish hot, adding sour cream and finely chopped herbs if desired.

Bon appetit!

Recipe for borscht with garlic donuts

The recipe produces a very tasty aromatic borscht, which is eaten as a bite with spicy garlic dumplings. It is advisable not to buy buns, but to prepare them at home yourself.

Cooking time: 2 hours.

Servings: 8.

Ingredients:

For the borscht:

• Purified water - for broth;
• Beef or chicken breast - a couple of pieces with bones;
• Onions – 3 pcs.;
• Beetroot – 3 pcs.;
• Carrots – 1 pc.;
• Potatoes – 4 pcs.;
• Cabbage – 0.5 heads;
• Bell pepper – 1 pc.;
• Tomatoes – 6 pcs.;
• Bay leaf – 2 pcs.;
• Salt, freshly ground pepper, seasonings for soup - according to your taste and discretion.

For garlic donuts:

• Milk – 250 ml;
• Eggs – 2 pcs.;
• Flour – 0.5 kg;
• Instant yeast – 11 g;
• Vegetable oil – 4 tbsp. l.;
• Salt – 1 tsp;
• Sugar – 1 tbsp. l.;
• Garlic – 3 cloves;
• Butter – 4 tbsp. l.;
• Dill - a couple of sprigs;
• Salt – 1 pinch;
• Yolk – 1 pc. (for lubrication);
• Milk – 1 tbsp. l. (for lubrication).

Cooking process:

1. Rinse the meat, put it in a saucepan and add water. Cook until boiling over high heat, drain the foam and water. Fill with clean water and add a whole peeled onion. Cook over medium heat for about 30-35 minutes until the meat is cooked. Don't forget to remove the foam.
2. Wash and peel vegetables and herbs.
3. While preparing the broth, you can put in the bun dough. Mix sifted flour and yeast, sugar, salt, mix. Add eggs at room temperature, sunflower oil, warm milk (not hot or cold). Knead the dough for about 25 minutes. in a food processor or by hand until elastic. Gather the dough into a ball, grease the container and the dough with vegetable oil, cover with a thin towel and leave in a warm place to rise for 1 hour. You can place the dough on the door of an open oven with a temperature set at 70-80 degrees. There should be no drafts in the house. You can also send the dough to proof in a multicooker, after greasing the bowl with vegetable oil, at a temperature of about 37 degrees.
4. When the meat is cooked, remove it from the soup and remove it from the bone, and discard the onion. Cut the potatoes into cubes and add to the broth.
5. Coarsely grate the carrots and beets, chop the pepper into thin strips, and cut the onion into cubes. Sauté everything in vegetable oil.
6. Pour boiling water over the tomatoes, remove the skin, chop finely and place in a frying pan.
7. Finely chop the cabbage and add to the soup. After 5 min. add frying. Salt, pepper, add seasonings and add bay leaf.
8. In 10 minutes. add finely chopped garlic and dill, cook for 5 minutes. Cover with a lid and leave on the stove turned off.
9. An hour after the dough starts proofing, it will double in size. Knead and leave for another 20 minutes. Knead again and form small round buns, place in a mold or on a baking sheet at a short distance from each other. Let rise for about 10 minutes. Brush with yolk mixed with milk and a pinch of sugar. Bake at 200 degrees for 20 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 180 degrees and bake for another 5 minutes. Brush the buns with sauce, turn off the oven and let them sit in the open oven for a couple more minutes.
10. To make the sauce, mix garlic passed through a press, finely chopped dill, a pinch of salt and melted butter.
11. Serve the finished dish by cutting the meat into a plate, pouring borscht over it, adding sour cream and sprinkling with fresh chopped herbs. Place 3-4 donuts separately with the dish.

Bon appetit!

Classic borscht in jars for the winter

To prepare borscht, you can prepare a semi-finished product in the summer and roll it into jars. Using this preparation, you can cook borscht 2 times faster, since almost the entire vegetable part will be added already prepared in advance. This trick will save any housewife hours of standing at the stove.

Cooking time: 1 hour.

Servings: 6.

Ingredients:

• Beetroot – 800 g;
• Cabbage – 800 g;
• Onions – 0.5 kg;
• Tomatoes – 0.5 kg;
• Carrots – 0.5 kg;
• Sugar – 3 tbsp. l.;
• Salt – 2 tbsp. l.;
• Unscented sunflower oil – 100 ml;
• Water – 100 ml;
• Vinegar – 50 ml.

Cooking process:

1. Peel and wash all vegetables. Grate the carrots and beets coarsely and chop the cabbage.
2. Cut the tomatoes into medium-sized pieces, removing the dense white parts. Cut the onion into half rings.
3. Place all the vegetables in a deep saucepan, add granulated sugar, salt and sunflower oil.
4. Pour water into the vegetables and cook over medium heat for about 20 minutes, stirring occasionally.
5. Wash jars and lids with baking soda and rinse. Place the glass container in a cold oven, set the switch to 120 degrees and treat the jars with heat for about 15 minutes. Boil the lids for 5 minutes. and dry.
6. Pour vinegar into the vegetables in the pan, stir, cook the mixture for another 1 minute. and pour into sterile jars when hot.
7. Cover the jars with lids and seal using a seaming machine.
8. Turn the workpieces upside down, cover with a warm blanket and leave to cool to room temperature for about 12 hours, and then put them in a cool, dark place for storage.
9. To prepare borscht, you need to boil the meat in the broth, boil the potatoes in it and for 5 minutes. Before the end of cooking, add the required amount of the product from the jar. Cook for 5 minutes, turn off, add spices and salt and let stand covered for another 15 minutes.

Bon appetit!