Many of us love to treat our family to delicious borscht. Someone cooks this delicious soup according to the old recipe of great-grandmother, and someone opens the Internet, where there are a lot of different recipes. And we all know that borscht should be exactly saturated red. To date, you can find a lot of different tips on how to cook beautiful red borscht. But it is not enough to know these tips, you need to use them correctly.

In general, by the color of this soup you can already tell whether it is tasty or not, what it lacks, whether it is satisfying. Therefore, special attention is paid to the color of borscht. It is important to know not only the proportions of the ingredients, but also how they are prepared. Here, as in almost every dish, there are some nuances that need to be considered. Many dishes, as we know, can be prepared without adhering to strict rules. But with borscht, it's completely different. Only following certain cooking steps will help you achieve the desired result, namely, a rich red soup.

So, color is the most important thing in our soup. It is important that it is not only rich, but also looks very appetizing. What gives this soup its red color? Of course, beets and tomatoes. These are perhaps the most important ingredients in borscht, not counting the meat. We will talk about meat in more detail a little later. The color will be influenced by the variety of beets and tomatoes. And also it is affected by how sour the cabbage is in the soup.

As for cabbage, it can be both sauerkraut and fresh. More often, the choice of cabbage is influenced by the season. In summer, most often we prefer fresh cabbage, and in winter we take sauerkraut from winter stocks.

What needs to be done to achieve the desired shade of borscht? Here are a few secrets that all famous chefs use:

1. You don't need to boil the beets. Beetroot loses color during the cooking process, and therefore, about a third of all beetroot should be grated on the shallow side of the sulfur. Pureed beets should be added to the soup only at the end of cooking, and, bringing to a boil, remove from heat and let it brew.
2. Beets need to be cooked separately. You need to boil the beets in the peel, then grate, so the shade will be saturated.
3. You need to add acid. In its quality, vinegar, citric acid and tomato pickle are well suited. You need to add it not to the soup itself, but to the dressing, while the extraneous smell should be evaporated.
4. Priority is the use of sauerkraut. The brightness of the color depends on the acidity of the borscht, which in turn depends on the sauerkraut.
5. Refueling should be kept on low heat. In this case, the beets will languish, and will lose only a small part in color.
6. Tomatoes will give the borscht a beautiful red color. At the same time, you need to remove the peel from the tomato and add them to the dressing. It is best to grind tomatoes in a blender.
7. Add tomato paste to borscht. Dilute the tomato paste in a glass with soup broth in a ratio of 1:1. That is, half a glass of pasta and half a glass of broth.

If you do everything right, then amaze your family with delicious borscht, from which they will certainly be very delighted.

Meat broth for borscht

Every housewife knows how to cook borscht with meat broth. And each housewife has her own recipe for making meat broth for this soup. It is best to take beef. But if you prefer more pork, then you can cook the broth on pork meat. There are no special rules here, since everyone has their own preferences about it. Someone likes beef, someone likes pork, and someone generally prefers to use rabbit meat for broth.

Here we will consider the preparation of the broth on beef meat. It is preferable to take the brisket, because there the meat is soft and juicy, it is best boiled. Some meat lovers claim that for soup you need to take exactly the second and third ribs. In order for the broth to be more indulgent, you can add lamb bones.

Meat should be thoroughly washed with cold water before cooking. Then put in a deep saucepan and pour cold water so that between the top point of the meat and the surface of the water was 3-5 cm. Cook the meat over medium heat. So the water will boil for about one hour, which is very good for meat broth. The emerging foam must be removed with a large spoon. It is better not to use a slotted spoon, as the foam will crawl through the holes and fall back into the soup.

Nothing bad will happen if you scoop up some water, the main thing is not to leave foam in the pan.

You should make sure that no bubbles appear in the pan, that is, you do not need to let the meat boil. If bubbles appear, pour cold water into the pan. This should be done until a white foam begins to appear.

Now you need to add vegetables to the broth. All we need is:

• Carrot;
• Celery;
• Greenery;
• Carnation.

The head of the onion should be cleaned well and stick a clove into it. Celery and carrots need to be cut lengthwise, and the greens should be tied into a bundle with cotton thread. All this must be put in a pot with broth. It doesn't hurt to add a pinch of thyme. The fire must be reduced to the very minimum, while the pan should be tightly closed with a lid. After 10 minutes, do not forget to check the broth, it should boil a little. At this time, you need to salt the broth a little, and then continue to cook the meat for about an hour and a half.

After the time has elapsed, you need to remove the vegetables from the broth and throw them away - we will no longer need them. Meat and bones must also be removed from the broth. After that, the meat is cut off the bones and cut into small pieces. As for the broth, it must be filtered through cheesecloth, which must be folded into several layers. This is to separate all unnecessary particles from the broth. Next, bring the broth to a boil and add meat to it. Next comes the preparation of the borscht itself. That is, our broth is ready.

A few important points

There are some important points in the preparation of this dish. If you fulfill them, then the borscht will be more tasty and satisfying. So, vegetables need to be cut as evenly as possible. For cooking, you should choose only high-quality products. If you have a doubt that the cabbage is not fresh enough or sour, then it is better not to use it, but to go for a new one. In addition to cabbage, all vegetables should be firm. Make sure that there are no preservatives in the tomato paste, so that only natural tomatoes are used. Instead of spices, it is better to use natural vegetables. The only spice is salt. Make sure the vegetables are not overcooked. To do this, put the next batch of vegetables in the soup immediately after it boils. It is also important to make sure that after adding the cabbage, the borscht does not boil. To do this, all the last steps must be done quickly. Remember, when the cabbage boils for at least a few minutes, it will give the soup an unpleasant smell.

Borscht is best eaten with sour cream and Borodino bread. Many people like to eat borsch with homemade bread, which has a crispy crust. You can sprinkle it with breadcrumbs, but not much. Someone does not like to eat this dish with sour cream, eating it with mayonnaise. As for dill, it should be added to the plate, not to the pan.

A bit of history

It is useful to know a little about the history of this delicious dish. Borsch is a traditional Slavic dish. Then every woman had to know how to cook borscht. It was considered a shame for the whole family that the wife or daughter did not know how to properly cook this dish. There weren't as many recipes back then as there are now. But each family had its own secrets that were not customary to spread.

These secrets were passed down from generation to generation: from mother to daughters, and from these daughters to their daughters, and so on. An interesting fact is that this soup received the name "borsch" thanks to the plant "hogweed". It was the leaves of this plant that were then the main ingredient of the dish. Later, this soup began to be cooked already on beetroot kvass. And only after that they began to use the beets themselves for cooking.

Today, borscht is considered to be the first dish of Ukrainian cuisine. But, despite this, borscht is loved in Russia, Romania, Lithuania, and many more countries. Often you might notice that some people confuse borscht with cabbage soup. Repeatedly there were even disputes on the topic that cabbage soup is the same borscht, only its color is not red, but yellow or orange. So there is no correct answer to the resolution of this dispute.

Products
Classic recipe for a 4-liter pan
Beef on the bone- 500 grams, approximately 400 grams of meat and 100 grams of bone.
Traditionally, bone-in beef is used, as the bone deepens the flavor of the broth. However, sometimes beef is replaced with pork, then the dish will turn out to be more fatty, and, as a result, high-calorie. Less often they cook borscht with chicken or turkey meat. In this case, cook less and, as a rule, is cheaper. In general, it is better to take fresh meat on the bone. If meat is frozen, thaw beforehand.
Beet- 2 medium or 1 large, 250-300 grams
Carrot- 1 large
Cabbage- 300 grams
Potato- 3 large pieces or 5 small ones
It is better to take larger potatoes in borscht to make it easier to peel
Tomatoes- 3 pieces
In the classic variation, put a tomato + vinegar. Sometimes this tandem is replaced with tomato paste. Tomato paste is slightly more acidic than tomatoes, but it helps to preserve the bright color of borscht, as it contains vinegar. Or a few canned tomatoes or juice from canned beans (if it includes tomatoes). Cooking in the same way - fry with vegetables. Or you can cook the tomato paste yourself - peel the tomatoes, chop and boil over low heat until the state of the sauce. It’s good to add bell pepper to such a home-made tomato-borscht paste.
Vinegar 9% - 2 tablespoons
To make the color of the dish become rich red and the taste more spicy. For a 4 liter pot, you need 1 teaspoon of 9% vinegar or 2 teaspoons of 6% vinegar; sometimes a tablespoon of sugar is added along with vinegar. Vinegar in cooking can be replaced with freshly squeezed lemon juice (from half a lemon). Also keep in mind that added canned tomatoes or store-bought tomato paste, if they replace tomatoes, already contain vinegar.
Onion- 2 heads or 1 large
Garlic- 3-4 teeth
Dill, parsley- 50 grams
Salt and pepper, lavrushka- taste

These are products that are added to classic borscht. If you want to break the rules, Here's what else is often added to borscht:
1. Mushrooms and beans. Beans will make the dish much more satisfying, and mushrooms will add flavor.
2. Sugar - then borscht will be especially good with sour cream. If the beets are sweet varieties, then you do not need to add. Sugar is added at the very end, so try it and decide for your particular case whether sugar is needed or not.

How to cook borsch - step by step
Stage 1. Boil the meat broth - cook for about an hour and a half.
Wash the beef, pour 3 liters of water into a 4-liter saucepan, put the peeled onion and peppercorns, bay leaf, put the meat in the water, cook over low heat under the lid for 2 hours after boiling. Salt the water at the beginning of cooking - you need half a tablespoon of salt. After boiling the broth, the meat is slightly cooled and disassembled (cut) into pieces, and returned to the broth. The pot is covered with a lid.

Stage 2. Chop and cook vegetables in the correct order - about half an hour.
Finely chop the onion, rub the garlic or finely chop it, rub the beets or chop them into pieces - here to taste. And similarly with carrots, you can rub it, or you can cut it into semicircles. Someone even grinds in a meat grinder. In the classic recipe, variations are acceptable to your taste. Add vegetables to borscht in this order:
- Cabbage - if ordinary, then in front of the potatoes, and if the cabbage is young and tender, then it can be added 5 minutes after boiling the potatoes. If you like cabbage to be crispy, add it along with potatoes.
- Potato
- Vegetable roast with beetroot - to be cooked while vegetables are cooked.

Stage 3. Make vegetable frying and add flavoring additives - 15 minutes.
Heat the pan, fry the onion for 5 minutes over high heat, stirring occasionally. Add carrots and garlic to the onion, fry for 5 minutes. Add the beets, fry for 5-10 minutes over medium heat (some people like it when the beets are fried). Then add tomatoes or tomato paste, pour a ladle of broth from a pan with meat into a pan with vegetables, additionally add sugar and vinegar to taste, simmer for a couple more minutes, add to borscht - all the vegetables in it should already be cooked by this moment. It is better to taste both potatoes and cabbage, at the same time check the broth for salt. Boil the roast in borscht for 3 minutes.

Stage 4. Insist borscht - half an hour. The pot with borscht is tightly closed with a lid, carefully placed on a blanket and wrapped around it from all sides, preferably in several layers.

This completes the preparation of borscht. Now it remains only to pour it into plates and serve with sour cream and fresh chopped herbs.

The legendary first course - borscht - has as many cooking variations as Uzbek pilaf. Culinary experts are having a heated debate about which recipe for borscht can be considered correct. However, here it is rather a matter of local affiliation - Lviv borscht always differs from Poltava, and Moscow from Kyiv. But there are some really important tricks that will work with any recipe and give this famous dish exactly the qualities for which it is loved and appreciated. You don't have to be a professional chef to master them. It is enough to pay attention to both the products and the process.

- Choice of meat -

Oddly enough, even the most reverent borscht lovers do not limit us in choosing meat. Excellent borscht is made from pork, rabbit meat, and even fish. But still, the classic requires taking a meat beef bone. Moreover, it is better that it be a brain bone from the front legs of the animal. Brisket is also suitable, as it has both meat and enough fat, as well as a lot of connective tissue with gelatin, which provides the right consistency.

- Secrets of the broth -

Real borsch broth should be strong and fragrant. This fact is ensured by special preparation of the bone. Before you put it in the pan, you need to chop the bone so that the bone marrow from it “comes out” into the broth. Another secret of rich borscht is the proportions of the liquid. At the end of cooking, one serving should have no more than 1.5 cups of pure broth. And at the beginning of the water should be poured twice this amount. And after the broth is cooked, the meat should be removed from it until serving.

- Vegetables -

Beets give color to borscht, but saturation cannot be achieved without a secret ingredient. In order for the color to be “as in the picture”, you need to add lemon juice or vinegar during passivation - a few drops will suffice. In addition to color, this maneuver will help keep the sourness on the palate. In addition, beets are advised to stew separately from onions and carrots. Cabbage - the second most important ingredient in borscht - must be mashed before being put into the pan so that it gives the right amount of juice.

- Garlic -

Some people generally refuse to put garlic in borscht during the cooking process, preferring to eat it along with donuts “bite”. However, the classic recipe dictates the need to add garlic along with lard. At the same time, the fat should be with a smell, and the garlic should not be crushed, but finely chopped. Dill, parsley and other herbs are usually added to this mixture. Garlic and lard are placed at the very end, and it is on them that most of the responsibility for the final flavor of the dish lies.

- Nuances of preparation -

In the matter of cooking borscht, not only vegetables and meat are important, but also the pan in which you are going to cook it. It's all about the broth, which requires careful handling and reacts very poorly to too much fire. So that the borscht does not boil over, you need a pan with a double-layer bottom and thick walls. So the contents will heat up faster and cool down more slowly. In addition, it will be less risky to move away from the pan, since the risk of overboiling will be negated.

- Recipe of borsch -

Ingredients

400 g beef on the bone

1 carrot

300 g white cabbage

4 things. potatoes

2 tbsp tomato paste

1 head of garlic

Lard

Greens, salt, ground black pepper to taste

Vegetable oil

Cooking

In a saucepan with a volume of 3-3.5 liters, you need to place the meat in one piece and pour two liters of water. Cook over medium heat, skimming as foam appears. After the water boils, you can reduce the heat, cover the pan with a lid and leave for an hour. At this time, we clean and chop the onion, three beets and carrots on a coarse grater. We put them in a pan with heated vegetable oil. We pass them for several minutes, after which we add tomato paste and after 3 minutes we remove from heat. We take out the meat from the finished broth and put finely chopped cabbage into it, and after 10 minutes potatoes. At this time, the broth must be salted. When the potatoes are ready, add the sautéed vegetables and return the meat, cut into pieces, to the broth. At the very end, put the bay leaf, herbs mixed with garlic and lard, pepper. Cover the soup with a lid and turn it off after 5 minutes.

The most delicious is borscht in meat broth. For the broth, you can use pork or beef, but it is desirable that it be with a bone. If you take pork, then the ham on the bone is best. On the broth, borscht turns out to be very rich and fragrant.

Borscht in meat broth: ingredients

• Meat 800 gr - 1 kg
• 400 gr. potatoes
• large bulb
• White cabbage - 300 - 350 gr
• medium carrot
• small beets
• bell pepper
• 70 gr tomato paste
• 2 garlic cloves
• Salt, spices and herbs
• 2 bay leaves
• Vegetable oil
• Greenery

Borscht in meat broth: cooking

The first step is to boil the meat. Pork will take about 1.5 hours to readiness, and beef 2-2.5 hours. While the broth is being cooked, there is enough time to prepare the rest of the components of the future most delicious borscht.

Peel the potatoes and cut them into cubes. Not too large and not small - about 1.5x1.5 cm. Peel the onion, soak it in cold water so as not to cry too much when chopping it, chop it. Finely chop the garlic and immediately add it to the onion - they will be fried together! Shred the cabbage into thin strips.

Carrots and beets need to be peeled and grated on a medium grater. Bulgarian pepper cut into cubes. By the way, if you get a lot of vegetable mixture, you can place in a plastic container or bag and until the next borscht. Thus, next time you just take the workpiece out of the freezer and fry it!

Ready broth must be filtered through a fine sieve or cheesecloth. Cut boiled meat into cubes. If there is a lot of meat, you can leave it. Boiled meat makes excellent naval pasta!

Add the potatoes to the broth and cook until they are very soft. It is important! Undercooked potatoes, even in borscht, even in soup, will spoil the whole taste. In the meantime, fry the onion in vegetable oil until golden brown, add the vegetable overhang and finally the tomato paste. Stew a little and put in a pot with boiling potatoes. At this stage, the future borscht should be salted. Do it to taste.

If you use young cabbage, add it 5 minutes before the end of cooking. If the cabbage is not young, cook it for 15-20 minutes until it becomes soft.

So, the meat is in place, the potatoes are being cooked, the frying is added, the cabbage is present. It remains the case for the small. We put two bay leaves in super borscht, spices to taste, leave it on low heat for 5 minutes. Then we turn off the fire, throw green: fresh, dried, frozen - it depends on the season and what you have. We simmer borscht under the lid for fifteen minutes.

Classic borscht (red borscht)- This is the famous beetroot soup, which the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe can rightly be proud of. Beetroot borscht has a particularly ancient history in Ukraine, which is why it is often called Ukrainian borscht. But there is also Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Kuban, Moscow and even Siberian borscht. And they cook it differently in each individual region, and even with options: meat, lean, and in summer cold borscht, which is often called a cold soup, beetroot... It unites the main thing - wherever borscht is cooked, it belongs to the most favorite culinary dishes. And the ability to cook delicious real borscht in these parts is considered one of the main virtues of a woman, almost as good as beauty and kindness. Therefore, the preparation of borscht is a kind of sacrament, and borscht itself is one of the main aphrodisiacs for the Slavs. This word is delicious - borscht!

Green borscht- This is sorrel soup, also a dish of national cuisines of Eastern Europe. Green borscht is not a variation of the classic borscht, it has a completely different recipe and a completely different color - green. It is obtained from sorrel and other green ingredients.

1. To make borscht thick, boil one whole potato in it. When the borscht is ready, take it out, knead it well and return it to the borscht.
2. When beetroot is boiled, its color and the color of its broth are muted. To make borscht a juicy bright color, put about a quarter of the beets chopped for borscht in a bowl, pour boiling water over it and leave for at least 20 minutes. When the borscht has already been removed from the heat, squeeze the beets and pour the resulting juice into the borscht.
3. To improve the taste of borscht, it is recommended to take a piece of good lard, grind it with salt and garlic, add the resulting mixture to an almost ready borscht.
4. Do not serve borscht immediately after cooking is complete! Let the borscht brew for at least an hour.

And further. If you cook borscht according to our recipes and you manage to cook delicious borscht, take a photo of your borscht and post it under the recipe - treat everyone to your borscht. Let everyone learn how to cook delicious borscht!