Recipe Friday Ukrainian Chervony Borscht

If you know my husband, you know that he lived in Ukraine for two years. He was there serving a mission for our church. While there he learned how to speak Russian and Ukrainian, strong work ethic, teaching skills, how to quickly adapt to changes in location and roommates, and a host of other things. Among those things he also learned how to make one of the most delicious soup I have ever tasted. I was hesitant at first when I saw the list of ingredients, but one taste and I was addicted. Today, my husband is happy to share this recipe with you. He says it's a combination of all the BEST borscht recipes made into one delicious pot of goodness.

A word of caution, this soup is a lot of work so you might want to recruit a helper or two, but it's so worth all the hard work.

Ingredients:

2.5 litres of water

2 large beets (or 3 smaller ones)

2 cups of shredded cabbage

6-8 potatoes

2 large carrots

2 onions

6 diced cloves of garlic

3 Tbsp. tomato paste or sauce

2 heaping Tbsp. of chicken stock OR 2 chicken bouillon cubes

Parsley and/or dill to taste

Directions:

1. Peel the beets and grate them into frying pan. Cook them over low to medium heat in butter and oil, add a little water, cover and let simmer for approx. 10 minutes. Careful not to let beets burn – stir them up a bit if necessary.
2. Peel and grate carrots and add to beets. Cook both together for another 10 minutes.
3. As beets and carrots are cooking, peel and dice potatoes and add to a large pot of 2.5 L boiling water. Boil for 5-10 minutes. Once the carrot-beet mixture is finished, add them to the potatoes and the 2.5 L of boiling water.
4. Add tomato sauce/paste and chicken stock.
5. Dice onion, fry until soft and add to mixture in pot.
6. Add two cups of shredded cabbage to mixture. Let all vegetables cook until tender.
7. As mixture cooks, add parsley and/or dill and garlic. If the mixture is too thick add appropriate amount of water.
8. Serve with smetana (sour cream) and rye bread and enjoy!

Note, usually borscht tastes better once it has sat for a few hours. I don’t know why. It just does!