borsch

traditional russian/ukrainian soup. a hassle to cook, delicious to eat!

i n g r e d i e n t s (for 4 persons)

• peace of meat on bone (relatively big bone and less meat)
• 4-5 bay leaves
• 4-5 black pepper seeds
• salt
• 1 onion
• 2 potatoes
• half a head of cabbage (small)
• 1 carrot
• 1 beetroot
• half of a tomato (or one small)

s e r v e d  w i t h

• sour cream
• bread
• dill (optional)

p r e p a r a t i o n

b r o t h:   put the meat in approx. 1.5 l of water and set on a medium fire. you need to be careful: once it's about to boil, meat gives some really not nice scum that you have to remove from water surface with a skimmer. after it stops appearing, add half a tablespoon of salt, half an onion, bay leaves and black peppers and leave it boil on a small fire for 2.5 - 3 (!) hours.
after that, remove everything from the water. leave meat aside to cool. bay leaves, pepper and onion go to the trashcan.

shred potatoes and add it to the boiling broth.
cut remaining half an onion small, stew it in a frying pan with oil. while it's getting ready, shred cabbage, grate the carrot and the beet (separately ;-)).
when broth with potatoes is boiling, add cabbage to the soup.

once the onion is golden, add carrot to the frying pan, add some oil as carrot usually adsorbs a lot, after some time add grated beet as well. slice the tomato.

when your soup is boiling for some minutes (you need the potato and cabbage to get ready), add the mix from the frying pan right there. leave it boil (all on a small fire of course), meanwhile fry the tomato until it becomes almost a paste.

separate the meat from bone, cut it. add the tomatoes and meat to the pan.

now it needs no more than 3-5 more minutes on stove.

your borsch is ready! it is usually served with a teaspoon of sour cream and some dill (cut very small) on top.

P.S. do not be fooled by the size of everything on the pics, it's not that big :-) this pan size is 2.5 liters.