What we need
Based on a 4-liter saucepan:
- Polkuritsy or 1 kg of pork (beef);
- Salo for roasting (about 200 g);
- 2 large onions;
- 2 carrots;
- 1 beet;
- About 400 g of potatoes;
- 200 g of cabbage;
- Bulgarian pepper;
- Several cloves of garlic;
- 5 tomatoes or 3 tbsp. l. tomato paste (it will be tastier if you combine them);
- Bay leaf (3 pcs.), Fragrant peppercorns, salt, sugar, greens (dill, parsley).
Stages of borscht preparation
- Cook broth
Place the meat, onion, and carrot into the pan.pour in water. To make the broth a beautiful golden color, you can wash the onion well and cook it right in the husk. After the water boils, reduce the heat, add bay leaf, peppercorns, and a little salt. Cook the broth over low heat until the meat is done. Pork - about two hours, chicken - about an hour.
- Filter the broth
If you did everything correctly, then you have broth.It turned out transparent, a beautiful shade. We take the contents out of the pan, strain the broth, bring it to a boil again and put peeled, sliced potatoes into the pan. While the potatoes are boiling on low heat, it is necessary to make the dressing for the borscht.
- We prepare refueling
Finely chop the lard and fry it in a frying pan.Add diced onion, grated carrots and beets. When the contents of the pan acquire a golden hue, put peeled and diced tomatoes or tomato paste diluted in broth. If you use both tomatoes and paste, do it in order: first, the tomatoes should give up their juice, only then add the paste. At this stage, the degree of frying of the vegetables is very important. It all depends on your taste, but if you only sauté the onions and carrots in the pan, the dish will be less rich.
- The final stage
While the dressing is being prepared, you need to chop itcabbage. The taste of the borscht also depends on what you do next. Some housewives add cabbage before frying, others, on the contrary, at the very end. Be guided by your preferences. Do you like the cabbage in the borscht to be soft? Then throw it in beforehand, then the dressing. If you have sauerkraut in the refrigerator, feel free to add it to the borscht in half with fresh - this will only make the dish better. Do not forget that you still have meat left, which also at this stage needs to be divided into pieces and thrown into the broth. When the borscht boils, you can add garlic, finely chopped bell pepper, herbs, salt, a pinch of sugar. But this is to the taste of the housewife - some add a little vinegar instead of sugar. Thanks to the tomato, the borscht already has a sour taste, and it is easy to overdo it with vinegar. Chefs recommend adding garlic and herbs directly to the bowl of borscht - this way the taste is revealed much more vividly. Please note: the dish will be ready only half an hour after it is removed from the heat.
A bit about the experiments
As we have already said (and you have already done it yourself(note), at each stage of cooking borscht the hostess has a choice: when to add what ingredients, what to season the borscht with, etc. There are recipes with prunes, eggplants. You can also cook lean borscht with beets in water or vegetable broth. Some hostesses put beets together with potatoes in the broth, and not in the frying pan. However, before experimenting, it is worth finding “your” borscht recipe, and only then add ingredients to it to your taste. Try it, and you will definitely succeed!
