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

- Meat selection -

Oddly enough, even the most anxious borscht lovers do not limit our choice of meat. Excellent borscht is obtained from pork, rabbit meat, and even fish. But still the classic requires you to take a beef bone. Moreover, it is better that it was the bone from the front legs of the animal. Brisket is also good, as it contains both meat and enough fat, as well as a lot of connective tissue with gelatin, which will provide the desired consistency.

- Secrets of Broth -

A real broth for borscht should be strong and aromatic. This fact is ensured by special preparation of the bone. Before you put it in the pot, you need to chop the bone so that the bone marrow "comes out" from it into the broth. Another secret of rich borscht is the proportions of the liquid. At the end of cooking, no more than 1.5 cups of pure broth should fall on one serving. And at the beginning, water should be poured twice as much. And after the broth is cooked, the meat should be removed from it before serving.

- Vegetables -

The color of borscht is given by beets, but saturation cannot be achieved without a secret ingredient. For the color to be "as in the picture", during passivation, you need to add lemon juice or vinegar - a few drops are enough. Besides the color, this maneuver will help preserve the sourness in the palate. In addition, beets are advised to be stewed separately from onions and carrots. Cabbage, the second most important ingredient in borscht, needs to be kneaded before putting it in a saucepan so that it gives the right amount of juice.

- Garlic -

Some generally refuse to put garlic in borscht during the cooking process, preferring to eat it together with donuts. However, the classic recipe dictates the need to add garlic along with lard. In this case, the bacon should be smelly, and the garlic should not be crushed, but finely chopped. Dill, parsley and other herbs are usually added to this mixture. Garlic and bacon are placed at the very end, and they bear most of the responsibility for the final flavor of the dish.

- The nuances of preparation -

In the business 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 badly to too strong a fire. To prevent the borscht from boiling over, you need a saucepan with a two-layer bottom and thick walls. This will allow the contents to 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 is reduced to nothing.

- Recipe of borsch -

Ingredients

400 g of 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

Preparation

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 off the foam as it develops. After the water boils, you can turn down the heat, cover the pan with a lid and leave for an hour. At this time, peel and chop the onion, three beets and carrots on a coarse grater. We put them in a frying pan with heated vegetable oil. We sauté them for a few minutes, then add tomato paste and after 3 minutes remove from heat. 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 needs to be salted. When the potatoes are ready, add the sautéed vegetables and return the cut meat to the broth. At the very end, put a bay leaf, herbs mixed with garlic and lard, pepper. Cover the borsch with a lid and turn it off after 5 minutes.

Classic borscht (red borscht)- This is the famous beetroot soup, which the peoples of Eastern and Central Europe can rightfully be proud of. Especially ancient history of borscht with beets has in Ukraine, therefore 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 region, and even with options: meat, lean, and in the summer and cold borscht, which is often called chill, beetroot ... It unites the main thing - wherever borscht is prepared, it belongs to the most beloved culinary dishes. And the ability to cook delicious borscht in these parts is considered one of the main virtues of a woman, almost not yielding to beauty and kindness. Therefore, cooking borscht is a kind of sacrament, and borscht itself for the Slavs is one of the main aphrodisiacs. This word is tasty - borscht!

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

1. To make the borscht thick, boil one whole potato in it. When the borsch is ready, take it out, mash it well and return it to the borsch.
2. When boiling beets, its color and the color of its broth is muted. To make the borscht a juicy, bright color, put about a quarter of the beets chopped for borscht in a bowl, pour boiling water over 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 bacon, grind it with salt and garlic, add the resulting mixture to almost finished borscht.
4. Do not serve borscht immediately after you finish cooking! Let the borscht brew for at least an hour.

Borscht is a dish so popular in Eastern Europe that there is even a "borscht index" - a system for calculating the cost of living in a state based on the cost of products necessary for borscht. The recipes for making borscht differ: Belarusians do not add cabbage to it, in Lithuania they certainly put mushrooms, in Bulgaria - white beans. The invariable base is beets, which give this dish a beautiful color and a recognizable sweet and sour taste.

The best broth for borscht is obtained from beef brisket- juicy meat on the bone. For a richer taste, you can add a piece of pork, also preferably with a bone. The broth will be tastier if the meat is quickly fried over high heat for 1-2 minutes before cooking.

Add to brothonions, carrots, celery or parsley root, garni bouquet. After cooking is complete, all these vegetables must be removed, and the broth must be well filtered.

There is an ongoing debate about the method and time of laying beets. Some housewives stew it along with carrots and onions, others boil it directly in broth. We recommend the third option: grated or chopped beets into small strips simmer in 2-3 tbsp. l. broth under the lid for 5-7 minutes. Before finishing cooking add 0.5 tsp. vinegar (the easiest option is table vinegar, but it is better to take apple cider or wine). Lemon juice can be an alternative to vinegar.

In summer, freshly harvested young cabbage is the best choice for borscht. In winter, when this is not possible, chopped cabbage should be well masticated with a little salt so that it becomes soft and gives juice.

To make the borscht thick it is better to cook potatoes whole, and after cooking, get it out, knead it in mashed potatoes and return to the borscht.

The sweetness for which we love borscht can be added with sugar(add 1 tbsp. l. granulated sugar to the beets at the time of stewing) or bell peppers, added to the frying of carrots, onions and tomato paste. By the way, earlier sugar was added to almost any first and second courses - soups, meat, sauces. This was done in order to enhance the taste of the dish.

Tomato paste can be either purchased or made on your own. The tomatoes need to be washed, blanched, peeled, then cut into small cubes and transferred to a pan with a thick bottom, adding garlic, pepper, salt. Simmer for 5 minutes, cool, grind in a blender.

After laying the vegetables, do not let the borscht boil. Reduce heat and simmer until cooked with lid ajar.

Having perfected the classic recipe, pay attention to the recipes with white beans, mushrooms or "ears" - small dumplings with a filling. We are sure that a new reading of a familiar dish will please you.

The most important thing: borscht is one of the few first courses that tastes better if you let it brew for at least 1-2 hours. Therefore, if you have a large family, it is best to cook in the largest saucepan. On the second or third day, its taste will become absolutely unforgettable.

Borscht is a very mysterious and unusual dish, the methods of preparation of which are still debated. In different Slavic countries, borscht is cooked in their own way - with sausages, smoked meats, fish, horseradish, zucchini, beans and even apples. Each family has its own secrets of delicious borscht, which are passed down from generation to generation, but one thing remains unchanged - love for this amazingly tasty dish, which is impossible to resist. small children also love, so there are tips and tricks for making this soup for babies in cookbooks for newborns. Now borscht has become almost an international dish, and if you want to please your family with borscht, choose any recipe - Ukrainian with donuts, Moldavian with chicken, Old Lithuanian with mushrooms and kohlrabi, Polish with bread kvass or Siberian with meatballs. Borscht has always been a symbol of home warmth and comfort, so it is important that it be tasty and aromatic.

Borscht starts with broth

Borscht is usually cooked in a strong broth made from good beef, pork or chicken, and if you choose to use beef, go for the brisket as it is softer and more juicy. Some housewives add lamb bones to the broth to make the soup more rich, others cook borscht with duck, goose and rabbit, others manage with minced meat and stew, and some manage to cook a vegetarian version of real Ukrainian borscht. If you are making broth, cook it for as long as possible to make it richer. Bones are boiled for 5-6 hours, and meat - about 2.5 hours, just remember to skim off the foam. During the cooking process, you can add onions, carrots, celery and a bunch of greens to the meat to enrich the flavor of the broth. After the end of cooking, the vegetables are removed from the pan, the broth is filtered, the meat is separated from the bones, cut into pieces and added to the broth, sometimes with ham, sausages and homemade sausage.

How to cook delicious red borscht

After the broth has been cooked, it's time to put beets in it - it is the presence of beets that distinguishes real borscht from other first courses. The exception is green borscht, which can be cooked with or without beets, with the addition of sorrel, spinach, nettle and wild garlic.

Raw finely chopped beets can be added to the broth long before the meat is cooked, or by boiling them in the peel and cutting into pieces, put them in the soup at any stage of cooking the borscht. You can put half a teaspoon of sugar along with the beets in a saucepan for a pleasant sweetness. Boiled beets are also stewed with carrots, onions, tomatoes or tomato paste for a delicious dressing. You can use pickled or pickled beets, beet brine or tops. Czech housewives let the beets ferment a little in warm water, and in the villages the beets insist on kvass. To enhance the red color, a little lemon juice or beet extract is added to the borscht, which is obtained after boiled or raw beets are passed through a juicer. However, for this purpose, you can add to the soup and beet infusion. There is a rule - you can't spoil borscht with beets!

Tricks with vegetables when cooking borsch

If the chopped onion is put into the broth immediately after the beets, by the end of cooking the borscht it will boil down so much that it will be invisible in the soup, but will give it a piquant taste and aroma. Carrots are introduced into the broth a little later, cut into strips, and then potatoes are sent to the pan - while it is better to put a couple of tubers in the soup whole. Carrots and onions are added to borscht either raw, or with preliminary stewing or frying, and whole boiled potatoes can be overheated or additionally added to the liquid mashed potatoes to make the borscht thicker.

At the end of cooking, you can do cabbage by chopping it finely and adding it to the borscht, although some housewives introduce cabbage right after the beets. Additionally, you can add zucchini, fresh or canned beans, bell peppers, apples, pea pods, turnips and corn to borscht - the choice of product depends on the recipe and the taste of eaters. Do not neglect spices, use dried dill, parsley, roots, garlic, black pepper, cilantro, marjoram and fresh ginger. And the finishing touches - tomato paste added directly to the saucepan with borscht or tomatoes chopped in a blender with pre-skins.

Secrets of cooking borscht with fried

Frying makes it aromatic, full-bodied, bright, since fried vegetables have a more pleasant taste. Frying is simple - carrots and onions are fried until golden brown in lard or in oil, and then tomato paste or fresh tomatoes are added to the pan. You can first fry the onion with a little flour until it becomes creamy, and only then add the chopped carrots, bell peppers and boiled beets. In the process of frying vegetables, you can and should add water so that the vegetable mixture does not burn, at this stage many add vinegar or lemon juice to vegetables, sugar and garlic can be added for piquancy.

Modern culinary traditions are aimed at making the cooking process as simple as possible, and many housewives are mastering recipes on how to cook borscht in a slow cooker in order to feed the family with delicious food in record time. But sometimes you want to devote the whole day to cooking dinner and slowly cook broth, chop and fry vegetables, experiment with products, choose aromatic spices and let the borscht brew for half an hour, as it should be. Don't be surprised if the saucepan is empty by the end of the weekend, and don't spare the sour cream for the dressing. And this miracle can be served not only with donuts, but also with any delicious bread. In the old days, they knew that if there is borscht in the house, the household will not rest until it is eaten. As the people said, "where there is borscht, look for us there too."

Vegetables should not be overcooked, because then they will lose their original shape. For example, if we talk about cabbage, then it is worth evaluating what kind of cabbage it is. If the head of cabbage is a winter variety, then, as a rule, the leaves of the fruit are coarser and less juicy, which means they will cook a little longer than, for example, spring varieties.

The winter subspecies is boiled in a boiling broth for at least 15 minutes, but the spring subspecies is tender, so 5 minutes will be enough, after which you can lay the potatoes. It is preferable to cook the broth for such a charming dish on the bone, because then it will be more aromatic and rich. Of course, if there are health restrictions, then it is simply boiled in water, that is, they make a vegetable broth.

An important point when working with beets!

When preparing delicious borscht, beets must certainly be stewed separately, and after the initial processing, put in the main dish. For this, a juicy root vegetable of a saturated scarlet color is selected. The pulp should not have any inclusions, usually such beets are very sweet to taste.

The root vegetable is cut into thin strips and sent to a preheated pan, fried for 15-20 minutes, after which a few drops of vinegar essence are added to the mass. This is necessary for rich color and flavor enhancement. Carrots and onions are chopped like beets and fried until golden brown.

The correct preparation of the most delicious and aromatic borscht!

First of all, a rich, aromatic broth is cooked on the bone. If pork is taken, then the cooking time is several hours, when using lamb, cooking can take up to 5 hours, that is, the more tender the product, the shorter the cooking time of the broth.

After the broth is sure to filter and bring to a boil, and then put cabbage, potatoes, sautéed vegetables. Since there are a huge number of varieties of recipe cards, there may be more incoming ingredients, thus the product is laid down in a slightly different way.

Several recipes for the most delicious borscht

Fragrant borsch with beans

To prepare this awesome dish, you must:

• pork (you can use pork ribs);
• one large beet root crop;
• ¼ from a medium head of white cabbage;
• half a glass of beans (any);
• 4 pieces of potatoes;
• one head of onion;
• one carrot;
• one bell pepper;
• a few tablespoons of tomato paste (any);
• small celery root;
• spices (bay leaf, salt).

Preparation

The amount of incoming ingredients is calculated for 4 liters of boiled broth. After the liquid has been filtered, the meat is separated from the bone and finely chopped, and then immediately put back into the broth.

All ingredients (except potatoes) are cut into thin strips. It is important! Next, they start cooking. Before adding the broth, soak the beans in cold water. You can do this at night, it will only get better. The potatoes are cut into a medium block.

Beets are spread in a preheated pan with vegetable oil, fried, carrots and onions are added, and at the end, bell pepper and celery root are put. Fry for several minutes, add tomato paste, sauté until half cooked and turn off.

After the broth has been cooked and filtered, it is brought to a boil and the beans are put in (after draining the liquid from it), boil almost until cooked and add cabbage. As the broth boils again, spread the potatoes, cook for 15 minutes and add the sautéed vegetables.

Thus, it is boiled until tender, and at the end it is brought to taste. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, put a bay leaf and finely chopped greens. If you want to add black pepper with peas, then you should not put it in bulk in borscht, because it is unpleasant when chewing peas. Therefore, you need to make a neat bag out of gauze, pour the required amount of grains into it and place it on the edge with a lid. Remove the spices after 5-10 minutes. Bon Appetit!

Ukrainian borsch with garlic and asparagus beans

Such borscht will not leave indifferent any person on Earth!

Ingredients:

• pork (ribs);
• vegetable oil for frying vegetables;
• cabbage ¼ head of cabbage (small);
• a few drops of vinegar essence;
• one beet, carrots, onions;
• 5 potatoes;
• fresh cilantro;
• spice.

Preparation

Cabbage is placed in the strained ready-made broth, potatoes after 10 minutes. The slicing is the same as in the previous recipe. Beets are fried in advance by adding a few drops of vinegar essence, carrots, onions and asparagus beans (you can buy them frozen in the store).

After laying the potatoes, after 15 minutes, lay out the fried vegetables and bring to readiness. 5 minutes before the end of cooking, put finely chopped cilantro. turn off, leave for 15 minutes and pour into portions. Grated garlic is added to each plate. According to personal preference, borscht is served with sour cream or mayonnaise. Bon Appetit!