Shchi is a traditional Russian dish cooked with cabbage, sorrel or other herbs and served as a soup or stew. They began to cook cabbage soup supposedly from the 9th century, when the peasants in Russia began to grow cabbage. From century to century, cabbage soup was considered the main first course on the table in a Russian hut. Our great-grandmothers did not cook cabbage soup like we do now, but stewed it in a clay pot in a Russian oven for several hours. As a result, the dish acquired a special aroma and amazing taste. A lot has changed since then: Russian stoves have been replaced by gas and electric stoves and ovens, not to mention the variety of products on the market. Nevertheless, cabbage soup has remained a very popular first course in our time. And no wonder, because rich broth, in which pieces of tender beef float, fragrant roast with tomato and sourness of cabbage form a unique, tasty and fragrant soup. Everything is harmonious in it. It's not for nothing that our ancestors loved cabbage soup so much!
Now every housewife prepares them in her own way, and there are a myriad of recipes. Shchi is cooked from fresh and sauerkraut, sorrel, and even from nettles. I would like to suggest cooking cabbage soup from sauerkraut - this is a classic recipe and, in my opinion, the most delicious version of cabbage soup. In the common people, such a soup is also called "sour cabbage soup". But do not be afraid, the soup will not be too sour, sauerkraut will only transfer sourness to the broth, and it will taste like fresh. This cabbage soup recipe is very reminiscent of a combined meat hodgepodge, which is prepared with pickled or pickled pickles. Therefore, connoisseurs of hodgepodge will definitely like this recipe for sauerkraut soup.
Ingredients (for a 3L pot):
1. For the broth we will use beef on the bone (preferably). Due to the bone, the broth is more rich and satisfying. Pour water into a 3 liter saucepan. We wash the meat on the bone under cold running water and put it in a saucepan. Put on high heat and bring to a boil. Remove the foam from the surface of the broth as it arises. When the water boils, set the fire to minimum, cover the pan with a lid so that the broth does not escape, and leave the beef to cook for about 2 - 2.5 hours. The readiness of the broth is determined by the meat, which should be partially separated from the bone and easily pierced with a fork.
2. We take the beef out of the pan and cover it with a plate on top so that the hot meat does not wind up and become dry. We will deal with them a little later.
3. We filter the broth through a small metal sieve or cheesecloth so that we do not come across small parts of the bone in the finished dish.
4. Let's prepare a roast for sauerkraut soup. Let's take onions first. In order for the onion not to cause tears, we wash it under a stream of ice water. Then cut into half rings, so it will look like cabbage in the soup.
5. We clean and wash the carrots. We rub on a medium or large grater.
6. Put the pan on medium heat, pour 2-3 tablespoons of vegetable oil. Saute onions and carrots together until onions are translucent.
7. Add 1 tablespoon of tomato paste to the frying. Mix everything thoroughly.
8. Pour half a glass of water into the pan so that the vegetables do not burn. Stew the onion with carrots and tomatoes for a couple more minutes over medium heat under the lid. Then take the roast off the fire.
9. Peel the potatoes and rinse thoroughly under running water. Cut into strips or small cubes, as you like more.
10. Pour the clean and transparent broth back into a clean 3-liter saucepan. Add a little filtered water so that the pan is 2/3 filled with liquid. We send chopped potatoes to the broth. We also drop 2 bay leaves here. Put the saucepan on medium heat.
11. The meat has already cooled down by this point, we separate it from the bone. Cut into small pieces.
12. Add chopped meat to the pan.
13. Now add the main ingredient - sauerkraut. If you still have juice from sauerkraut, we also pour it into the pan, with it the cabbage soup will come out even tastier. Here's a recipe for sauerkraut.
14. Pour the frying of onions and carrots. Mix everything and cook cabbage soup until potatoes and cabbage are soft.
15. Wash fresh greens under running water. Finely chop, sprinkle on top. Salt and pepper to taste.
16. Squeeze a couple of cloves of garlic into sauerkraut soup with a garlic crusher, it will give the dish a special flavor. Shchi mix and remove from heat. Cover the pot with a lid and let it brew for 15-20 minutes. And some housewives put the cabbage soup in a preheated oven so that it is closer to the recipe of our great-grandmothers.
17. Shchi can be served with freshly baked buns or garlic donuts. Sour cream and fresh herbs are also served with cabbage soup.
Classic sauerkraut soup is ready. Can be served at the table. Bon Appetit!
They say that cabbage soup was cooked in Russia long before its baptism, and this dish was eaten almost every day. It is no coincidence that many proverbs and sayings glorify cabbage soup in every way: “Where there are good cabbage soup, do not look for other food”, “Here you ate - like putting on a fur coat”, “Schami the world is standing”. Russian people are so accustomed to cabbage soup that they even traveled in winter with cabbage soup frozen in a tub, which was enough to warm up to fill up the whole family. They say that the Russian soldiers who fought against Napoleon's army, being on French territory, missed cabbage soup so much that they fermented grape leaves, which replaced sauerkraut in their soup. There was a smell of cabbage soup not only in peasant huts, but also in royal chambers, however, wealthy people ate thick meat soup, in which there was a spoon, and the poor often slurped thin soup with cabbage, quinoa and onions. And all the same, it was very tasty, so the people said: "Your father will get bored, but cabbage soup will not bother you."
There are many recipes with cabbage, sorrel, nettles, turnips, mushrooms, in meat or fish broth, with different roots, spices and sour dressings, such as pickle or apples. In the old days, cabbage soup was cooked even from beets, calling this dish “beet soup”, which looked more like borscht. The classic recipe for ancient cabbage soup necessarily included cabbage, fresh or sauerkraut, and if it was not at hand, they took green leafy vegetables or turnips. From the roots, the housewives used carrots and parsley, seasoning the soup with onions, garlic, celery, dill, bay leaves and pepper. An obligatory component of cabbage soup was acid - after all, this soup was valued due to its spicy sour taste. In addition to sauerkraut, salted mushrooms, antonovka, lingonberries, cranberries, pickles, sour cream, and everything that gave the cabbage soup a specific sour taste were used. In the southern regions of Russia, cabbage soup has always been cooked with tomatoes and bell peppers, and in modern recipes you can also find potatoes, which make cabbage soup thicker and tastier.
In Russia, products were put into cabbage soup in its raw form, without being fried or sautéed, although rye flour was added to soup in some areas for a thicker broth. Shchi was simmered in a Russian oven in a clay pot, so they turned out to be very appetizing and fragrant. Mostly beef was used for the broth, although cabbage soup with pork or poultry was popular in the western region. Don shchi was traditionally cooked with sturgeon, Pskov shchi with smelt, Polish and Ukrainian shchi was cooked with bacon, the Ural version of shchi included millet or oatmeal, in Georgia white wine and suluguni cheese were added to shchi, and the Finns could not imagine this dish without lamb and smoked sausage. In general, all national cuisines have their own peculiarities of cooking cabbage soup, and each version of the dish is tasty in its own way, besides, “hungry Fedot wants any cabbage soup.”
Before you learn how to cook the right ones, you should decide on the recipe, since there are several varieties of this dish.
Full cabbage soup, also called “rich”, is boiled in a strong meat broth, with the addition of a large number of ingredients, including mushrooms, potatoes and many spices. Meat and meat products of different varieties are added to prefabricated cabbage soup - boiled beef, poultry, pork, ham, sausage, sausages and sausages, which are cut into small pieces. Fish soup is cooked from noble varieties of fish, from small river fish or canned fish, while a combination of fresh and salted fish is acceptable. Lean cabbage soup is prepared without meat - with vegetables, mushrooms and herbs, green cabbage soup is a summer version of soup with sorrel or spinach. In the preparation of gray northern cabbage soup, the lower cabbage leaves of a grayish color are used, seedling cabbage soup is boiled from cabbage seedlings, and daily cabbage soup after cooking is first kept warm for four hours, and then left in the cold. By the way, now by sour cabbage soup we mean sauerkraut soup, and in Russia it was a kind of kvass that saved hangovers.
Once upon a time, housewives did not think about how to properly cook cabbage soup - they simply mixed all the products in a clay pot, put it in the oven, and the soup languished all day, and in the evening fragrant and tasty cabbage soup was served on the table. We do not have so much time, but modern technologies come to the rescue - a slow cooker and an air grill. But even in an ordinary saucepan, you can cook delicious cabbage soup, which will be eaten in the evening by a large family. Remember a few secrets and subtleties, and cabbage soup will become your signature dish!
Secret 1. If you decide to cook cabbage soup in meat broth, cook the meat in a whole piece for at least two hours to make the broth more rich and saturated - this is what soup is needed for. Be sure to add fragrant herbs and roots to the meat for piquancy.
Secret 2. Do not cook cabbage soup from too young cabbage, which is more suitable for salads. The best choice for cabbage soup is autumn cabbage with dense, strong and white heads. Many housewives bring cabbage to preliminary readiness separately - young cabbage is stewed in a saucepan on the stove for 15 minutes, and more mature cabbage is cooked in earthenware in the oven for two to three hours. Why is this needed? The fact is that when cabbage languishes, it is saturated with new flavors and aromas that enrich the taste of the dish.
Secret 3. If you have time, put the pot of broth at the last stage of cooking in the oven, covered with foil, and simmer for about an hour. Add crumbly varieties of potatoes cut into cubes and continue to simmer in the oven. Can you imagine what will be in the pan in an hour and a half? A tender thick stew with soft meat, and not a crumb will remain from the potatoes. And you should mix this fragrant liquid with cabbage, add any ingredients that you like - tomatoes, bell peppers, green beans, mushrooms and herbs, then simmer cabbage soup for at least another half hour. If you cook cabbage soup on the stove, the cooking time is, of course, reduced.
Secret 4. You can also add toasted flour to the soup. After it becomes golden, you should dilute it with broth, boil it slightly and rub it through a sieve. Shchi is also cooked with cereals, only it should be introduced before cabbage and potatoes, taking into account the individual cooking time.
It's good to have time to spare all day, but sometimes you need to cook a quick meal for the family, in which case recipes for very busy housewives save. In this case, it is better to cook the broth in the evening, besides, the meat will become soft and tender overnight, so it will not be difficult for you to cut it into cubes and return it to the pan again. Add fresh cabbage chopped into strips into the broth, after boiling, add sliced \u200b\u200bpotatoes and, while cabbage soup is boiled, fry carrots, onions, garlic and parsley root in oil in a pan. Dip the peeled tomatoes and diced sweet peppers into the cabbage soup, and after the vegetables have boiled a little, add the carrot dressing to them. Do not forget about bay leaves, black pepper and herbs, which are best added to ready-made cabbage soup along with sour cream. For 400 g of meat, take a small head of cabbage, 2 potatoes, 2 tomatoes, 1 carrot and 1 onion, and herbs and roots can be added to taste. Your family will be happy!
This dish is especially useful during winter beriberi, as sauerkraut contains vitamin C, which is necessary to fight colds and viral infections. In addition, sour cabbage soup does not allow other vegetables to boil too much, so they crunch nicely, which makes the dish even tastier and healthier.
From a kilogram of beef, cook a rich broth - with bay leaves and allspice. While the broth is cooking, fry 2 onions in a pan with sunflower oil and, when the onion becomes transparent, add 2 grated carrots to it. Once the carrots are soft, remove the pan from the heat and start the broth. You need to take out the meat, cut it into pieces, put it back into the pan and pour 2 diced potatoes and chopped parsley root into it. After 10 minutes, add 600 g of sauerkraut to the cabbage soup, which can be lightly squeezed first to remove excess acid. However, if you like cabbage soup with sourness, then you don’t need to do anything with cabbage - just boil it in broth for 15 minutes, then add roast and cook for another 7 minutes with your favorite spices and seasonings. Serve sour cabbage soup with cream or sour cream, sprinkled with fragrant herbs. Bon Appetit!
On the site "Eat at Home!" You will find many step-by-step cabbage soup recipes for every taste. Cook with love for your family and enjoy the food!
At all times, soup has taken pride of place on the table of every Russian family. The difference was only in the ingredients used in the recipe. Poor peasants often boiled empty cabbage soup, seasoned with rye flour for density. But the noble nobles ate the master's cabbage soup, i.e. soup from fresh cabbage with pork or other types of meat, poultry, fish.
First, the meat was cooked separately, then the cabbage soup itself, everything was mixed and languished in a Russian oven for about an hour and a half. Such a dish had an appetizing aroma, amazing taste and sated for the whole day. Nowadays, everyone can pamper their family with master's soup, so let's look at a step-by-step recipe for this national dish.
We prepare delicious cabbage soup from fresh cabbage with pork, starting with cooking meat broth. To do this, we thoroughly wash the meat, cut off things we do not need: hymen, fat, bones and more. We cut the pulp into small cubes, but do not grind it, because. meat after cooking is greatly reduced in volume. We put everything in a saucepan, fill it with cold water and send it to cook on the burner.
When the first foam appears, be sure to remove it with a slotted spoon. Salt the broth a little, cook over medium heat for about half an hour, covered with a lid.
While the broth is being prepared, carefully wash the roots. Peel the potatoes, cut into medium cubes. Fill it with water so that the slices do not darken from prolonged contact with air.
Coarsely grate the carrots or cut into cubes. We clean the onion, chop it into a small cube. We heat the vegetable oil in a pan, pour the onion, mix, fry until soft. Then add the carrots, stir, fry until all the ingredients are ready. At the end of cooking, put the pasta, stir, after a couple of minutes turn off the heat.
We release the head of cabbage from the upper leaves, rinse, cut in half, crumble into thin strips with a sharp knife with a long blade.
Put the potatoes in a saucepan with the finished meat, after draining the water from it. Cook vegetables until almost cooked. The next ingredient we will add to the pot is cabbage. Cook it until soft. At the end of cooking, we season the soup with vegetable frying, mix and wait for it to boil again. After that, cook cabbage soup from fresh cabbage with pork according to the recipe for another 5 minutes. Add chopped garlic, black pepper, parsley and salt to taste. After a minute, turn off the fire - master's cabbage soup is ready. A video of this dish can be found below.
Happy meal everyone!
Shchi from fresh cabbage is a simple soup that has been known to Russian people since the times of ancient Russia. Today it is not only delicious, but also a budget lunch, so be sure to try cooking it according to one of the recipes below.
The traditional recipe, of course, is not as accurate as it used to be, but rest assured - very similar.
If there is no meat or you do not want to use it, then you can make the first easier by preparing cabbage soup from fresh cabbage with chicken.
You can also cook cabbage soup with mushrooms, no matter how strange it may sound.
The broth can be used both meat and vegetable.
After this time, cabbage soup can be served with sour cream and fresh bread.
Shchi in a slow cooker turns out to be even tastier and richer than on the stove, since its bowl allows you to evenly heat all the products, which creates the effect of cooking, like in pots.
Shchi with pork is fatty, rich, but very tasty. Of course, you should not abuse this dish for those who count calories, but you can definitely try it once!
Shchi with beef is, one might say, the most nutritious recipe. It is best to use ribs or brisket in this option, but if there is some other piece of meat on hand, feel free to use it anyway.
Dishes cooked in pots are somewhat reminiscent of those made in the old Russian oven. They are tasty, rich and so "cozy"!
Shchi from fresh cabbage - well, this is a Russian classic. In general, cabbage soup is one of the most important dishes of Russian cuisine. They have been prepared since time immemorial, although then they were somewhat different from modern ones.
As a child, I went to visit a friend. We usually, if there were holidays, often hung out the whole day on the street and dropped in to eat at the house we were next to at the moment. So they had a Russian oven.
I remember how his grandmother or mother took out a cast-iron from the oven, then they cooked cabbage soup in it, with a special grip, and if the cast-iron was heavy, they put such a roller under it to make it easier to take it out.
She poured it into cups for us, and sometimes gave it in one large cup, put sour cream thick as butter there, and we screwed it on both cheeks until the cups were empty. And especially fatty cabbage soup, where fatty plaques floated on top, was served without sour cream. We did not know then that people have cholesterol.
Oh… what kind of cabbage soup were those! I've only managed to cook such delicious dishes a couple of times in my life.
In previous articles, I gave recipes for cooking green cabbage soup, or as they are also called, a recipe, but in my opinion, real cabbage soup is not only not inferior to borscht, but sometimes even surpasses them. Although they are very similar dishes.
By the way, I recently visited the site: "Piggy Bank of Wisdom", so they have a whole list of cabbage soup recipes there. Come in, take a look. Pick something new for yourself.
Well, let's cook our cabbage soup.
Next time I will try to write how to cook cabbage soup with lamb. I think that cabbage soup is the most delicious with lamb. By the way, my friend's grandmother and mother, whom I mentioned above, always made cabbage soup only with lamb.
Nowadays, it is very expensive to cook lamb soup, so we will cook pork soup.
For a 4.5 liter pot you will need:
1. Rinse the ribs and set to boil.
3. We cook meat. Don't forget to skim off the foam. When we remove the foam, we make the fire less than medium, close the soup with a lid and leave to cook further. Cook until the meat is well separated from the bones (ribs).
4. Cut the carrots into thin cubes. You can cut however you like. You can even grate. Who loves.
5. Shred the cabbage into thin straws. Again, whoever loves. You can cut larger.
6. Cut the potatoes into cubes, finely chop the greens, peel the garlic.
7. Meanwhile, our meat was cooked. We take it out of the pan, put it in a bowl and let it cool down.
8. While the meat is cooling in the broth, we throw the chopped cabbage. You can turn up the heat to above medium. We close the lid.
9. The cabbage boiled, put the potatoes to it. Let's interfere. Salt to taste. A lot of salt is needed for such a pan. But don't overdo it. Pour a little at first, then add a little more, tasting all the time.
10. Everything was prevented, we remove the fire to medium and leave to cook.
11. Put a frying pan on the next burner, pour vegetable oil and let it warm up. If you have a fatty broth, then instead of vegetable oil, you can use the fat from the broth, removing it with a spoon on top of the broth.
12. The oil is warmed up, put the onion in it. Fry until the onion starts to brown. Stir the onion occasionally.
13. In the meantime, let's take care of the meat, not forgetting to stir the onion. The meat is separated from the ribs. It separates very easily, as it boils well. Cut the meat into small pieces. Can also be cut into large pieces.
When we don’t have guests, I prefer to cut it altogether only by dividing the ribs one by one or even two, and not cutting the meat from the ribs. Then you pull a rib out of the cabbage soup, take it with your hands and gnaw it. Tasty…!
14. Our onions are browned. Add chopped carrots to it.
15. Add a little salt so that the carrot gives juice and mix. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the carrots are soft and lightly browned as well.
16. Carrots are reddened, add finely chopped tomatoes.
If you have fresh tomatoes, make a cross cut on top, put them in a cup, pour boiling water over them and hold for 1 minute. Then you can easily remove the skin from them. In general, one tomato will be enough.
If thick tomato paste, put half a tablespoon of it. not more.
If marinated in its own juice, finely chop about 2 tablespoons and add to the carrots and onions. Mix everything and fry for 2-3 minutes over low heat.
The frying is ready, we send it to the pan, stir and cook until the potatoes and carrots are ready.
17. We get such beautiful cabbage soup. Try again for salt. Everything should be to your taste. We close the lid and continue to cook over low heat, if only to boil gently, until tender.
18. We try again now for acid. If your tomatoes were sweet or it just seemed to you that there was little acid, add vinegar. I prefer to add lemon juice instead of vinegar. So if there is, squeeze half a lemon better, maybe less, try it.
19. Check the readiness of potatoes and carrots. We take it out with a spoon and try it with a knife. They must be soft. The knife should go in easily.
20. Put the chopped meat into the pan, pour the greens. Leave a little for decoration.
21. Squeeze out the garlic here. How much, see for yourself to taste. Approximately 4-5 cloves. Sprinkle with black pepper to taste. If there are children, it is better not to pepper. Let everyone pepper in his plate.
22. We try again for salt and sourness. Everything suited us. Turn off the heat, close the lid and let the cabbage brew for 15-20 minutes.
Well that's all. Fresh cabbage soup is ready.
Pour into bowls and serve. You can decorate with herbs and put sour cream. I bring it to the table. What if someone doesn't want to.
Serve with salt, pepper, sour cream and herbs.
Bon Appetit!