As an LDS missionary in the Ukraine, I ate borscht nearly every day for sixteen months, sometimes for three meals, depending on the number of appointments we had with babooshki, our Ukrainian grandmothers. Near the end of my stay, a friend of mine taught me how to make this soup. But as she had made it so many times that she could make it even if struck blind, her measurements were a little sketchy. "Just put a handful of potatoes in," she told me. She chopped some potatoes into cubes and threw them in the pot. Then she thought for a minute and threw some more in. "How much was that?" I asked in a panic. "A cup? Half a cup?" My friend just laughed. I wrote down Two Luba handfuls on my paper. I just hoped I could remember how big Luba's hands were by the time I got home.
Luba laughed and talked the entire time she cooked. In the whirlwind of conversation, I lost track of ingredients. So did Luba. I did my best to write down what I remembered seeing her peel, chop and shred. But when I came home and tried to produce an authentic pot of borscht, I couldn't make sense of my paper stained with beet juice, written half in English and half in Russian.
I looked in books and found a few recipes for "Quick Borscht" which called for canned beets and potatoes. That didn't even come close to tasting like what I remembered. Then I had kids and forgot all about borscht for many years and became a connoiseur of macaroni and cheese. Then I stepped into All Seasons Market and saw the beautiful deep purple cabbage and beets that looked like they had just been unearthed from the garden. Suddenly I had to have some borscht.
I called up my friend Christie who had also served a mission in the Ukraine. Luckily, she had a reliable recipe. And, combined with advice from allrecipes.com on the internet, I made a darn good pot of soup.
One caveat: Every region and person has their own version of this recipe, so you can play with it and come up with your own personalized rendition. It also can be made with or without meat. No matter what, it will warm you up inside and out.
Another caveat: Use good ingredients. Nearly everything I made my soup with came from All Seasons Market on 8800 South and 700 East in Sandy.
One more thing:
If possible, don't use canned beets. They just don't taste as good as fresh.
Ukrainian Borscht
I'll be honest with you. You're going to have to chop a lot of vegetables. But once you're done, the soup comes together quickly. Add some good bread and you've got yourself a good winter meal, tonight and tomorrow night. (The second night it's even better!)2 Liters water (I added more as I went along) You can also throw in a few cans of broth, chicken or vegetable or whatever you have on hand.)
Sausage (optional) (I used a pound of kilbasa sausage made by Colosimo's.)
Red cabbage (in the summer we always ate Green Borscht made with green cabbage)
3 Carrots
3 Beets
3 medium Potatoes
1 Onion
2 Tomatoes (I used 3 ripe Roma tomatoes or you can use 8 oz diced canned, drained)
5 cloves of garlic
3 teaspoons sugar
salt and pepper to taste
sour cream, for topping
Crumble or slice sausage into a skillet and cook until no longer pink.
Fill a pot with the 2 liters water and set it to boiling. While you're waiting for the water to heat, chop up half a head of purple cabbage in thin slices. (You can shred it if you want, but I prefer nice long pieces of cabbage in my borscht.) When the water's boiling, throw in the cabbage.
Slice or shred your carrots and beets. (I julienned mine--well, at least my own version of julienning, which is to slice on the diagonal and then cut into little sticks.) Saute the carrots and beets in a bit of olive oil.
Thinly slice your onion and saute that as well. (I used a Vidalia, and though regular onions send my stomach into turmoil, the vidalia went down just fine.)
Peel and cube your potatoes. (I used Yukon golds purchased at the farmer's market in the fall from Jensen Farms. They are delicious, and I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that the Jensens don't use pesticides.)
By now you have a counter covered in vegetables and a house that smells of sausage. The kids have come upstairs and asked, "What's for dinner?" twice already and you've realized that you're getting hungry too. No worries. You're almost done.
Take all of those beautiful vegetables and that aromatic sausage and add it to the pot. You might be thinking the water looks a little too sparse to handle all that stuff you put in. You're probably right. Add more water until it looks like there's enough to cover your ingredients. Bring the whole shebang back to a boil and then turn down the heat to medium or low--just enough to keep the bubbles going but not enough to make everything boil over-- so those vegetables will soften up.
As the soup cooks, cut up your tomatoes. Mince your garlic. Listen to some music and drink some water. Throw the tomatoes and garlic in the pot. Give the soup a good stir with a big wooden spoon.
When it looks like the vegetables are ready, toss in 3 teaspoons of sugar, more or less according to your taste. Season with salt and pepper.
Now, this last part is vital:
Ladle into bowls and serve with a dollop of sour cream (and don't get that fat free stuff). Stirred into the soup, that sour cream will transform the borscht into a pink bowl of creamy wonder, like so:
I had toyed with the idea of serving the borscht like this:
but that didn't seem right. My favorite memories are of sitting in a Ukrainian kitchen eating this soup, chatting with the cook as she took a large round loaf of brown bread from the bread box and cut it into thick slices. There are few comfort foods I like more than good bread dipped in even better soup. Borscht is not fussy food. It's down home cooking Ukrainian style.
After the borscht: Of course I had to eat it when I was done photographing it!
