Westcoast Cooking - New American Borscht

New American Borscht

Thursday, 24 July 2008

Borscht is a quintessential Old World soup. The very name evokes a lost world, and older recipes for the soup can be daunting. The Soup volume of the 1979 Time-Life Good Cook series devotes pages to describing in elaborate detail how one might prepare “Borscht on Grand Scale,” with separate steps for cooking the meats, the beets and the cabbage. “Add a small duck browned in the oven, a pound of blanched brisket of beef and a rasher of bacon,” advises Larousse Gastronomique. And that’s the easy part. To generate the distinctive acidic edge that gives borscht its character, Ukranian, Russian and Polish versions call for fermented beet liquid; rye bread, beets, water and sugar are left to ferment like beer or sauerkraut to create the tangy acid base for the soup. Newer formulas for borscht seem almost too simple by comparison. The 2005 edition of the Gourmet Cookbook advises us to start with a jar of pickled beets. And The Joy of Cooking offers a recipe in which tomatoes nearly drown out the beets. When I came into a few pounds of organic beets not long ago, I devised this formula that conjures some Old World charm even as it appeals to my New World lifestyle.
(Makes 8 servings)
For the beets:
2 large beets, skins and tails intact
1 quart water
For the soup base:
2 tablespoons sugar
1 1/2 pounds stewing beef
1 tablespoon kosher salt
2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
2 quarts beef broth
1 bay leaf
For the saute:
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 medium onion, peeled and diced
2 medium carrots, peeled and diced
3 or 4 small yellow-fleshed potatoes, scrubbed and diced
Half a head of Napa cabbage
To finish the soup:
kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
a few sprigs of fresh parsley or dill
1 cup plain (unflavored) yogurt or sour cream, optional

1.) Put the untrimmed beets in a saucepan with the water over high heat and bring the water to a full, rolling boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer the beets until they are tender, about 1 hour.
2.) While the beets are cooking, prepare the soup base. Melt the sugar in a dry pan over medium high heat, and when the sugar is a deep caramel color, add the stewing beef sprinkled with kosher salt. Stir the beef around until it is well browned, about 2 minutes, then add the balsamic vinegar, beef broth and bay leaf. Bring the liquid to a boil, reduce heat to low and simmer the beef until it is tender, about 1 hour.
3.) While the beets and beef are still cooking, prepare the vegetables. Warm the olive oil in a large frying pan and sauté the carrots and onions over medium high heat until they are beginning to brown. Add the potatoes and cabbage and sauté until the vegetables are heated through. Add the sautéed vegetables to the beef base and continue simmering until the potatoes are tender.
4.) Use a slotted spoon to lift the beets out of the boiling water and under cold, running water, slip off their skins. Grate the cooked, peeled beets and add the grated beets to the soup. Season the soup to taste with salt and pepper and serve it with a pinch of chopped parsley or dill floating on every bowlful. Pass yogurt or sour cream separately.

Copyright, Greg Atkinson, 2006