6 Rules for Great Borscht

Soup. Simple, Tasty, Warms your toes, and hard to mess up. 

Any way you look at it, soup should be called “the universal food.”  Every culture makes it and eats it... and we all think ours is the best.

Borscht is really just a vegetable soup commonly, but not always, using beets.  It is salty with a hint of sweet from the beets or other root vegetables.  There is no one way to make it, so here are the basics.  If you stick to the following 6 rules you can’t go wrong.

Rule #1: for the base of your soup use the following vegetables.  Beet roots, Onions, carrots, garlic, parsley and sauté them in butter in the bottom of the pot you will make your soup in. 

Rule #2: usebutter! I love butter, it is good for you and it makes things taste lovely.  I’ll post shortly on the health benefits of butter.  I am not object to olive oil for sautéing however butter is more traditional for this dish and lends a better flavour.  

Rule #3: use chicken or pork bone broth. I prefer chicken, however pork is good too.  The fat, colloidal proteins and minerals from the bone broth make this a healthy dish. (Yes, I said “fat makes it healthy.”) 

Rule #3.5:  Why 3.5?  Because you can skip this step, although I recommend you try it at least once.  I like to lightly puree using a hand held submersion blender.  You can make it smooth as silk or leave it slightly chuncky. I do this right in the pot, but caution because it does splash!  Or alternatively use a blender and when done transfer it back to the pot.  

Rule #4: just before serving, sauté sliced cabbage in a frying pan with lots of butter and some sea salt. When it is shrunk down, well cooked and starting to turn brown dump it in the pot and give it a good stir. This makes borscht... borscht, according to me.

Rule #5: always serve borscht with sour cream or crème fraiche. 

Rule #6: always top with chopped fresh dill.  Makes it fresh and light. It is a great compliment to the heavy cream and the deep flavours of the broth and vegetables.