Pureed Borscht — recipe for #foodie Friday

Borscht is a soup people tend to either go hot or cold on. I’m hot for it. Love it. I thought of that as one can eat it hot or cold too! (bad play on words, perhaps?) It can also be made with meat or just veggies. This recipe is all veggie, except for the broth which can be either veggie or meat based.

There are endless variations.  (from Wikipedia)– “Borscht Ukrainian: is a soup of Ukrainian^[1]  origin that is popular in many Eastern and Central European countries. In most of these countries, it is made with beetroot as the main ingredient,^[2][3] giving it a deep reddish-purple color. In some countries, tomato is used as the main ingredient, while beetroot acts as a secondary ingredient. Other, non-beet varieties also exist, such as the tomato paste-based orange borscht and green borscht (sorrel soup“). (read more)

I simply used what I had around as is my wont to do.

Ingredients:

●  6 beets (I used three orange and three red beets)

● 1 small purple cabbage

● 24 oz crushed tomato

● 48 oz stock (as usual I use bone stock but you can use whatever you like and make it vegetarian if you prefer)

● 3 carrots

● 1 very large red onion

● 12 cloves of garlic

● a bunch of fresh dill chopped (if you must you can use dried…experiment with what tastes good)

● 1/2 cup very strong red wine vinegar (I get this really rocking stuff from a winery in California’s Napa Valley. My step father is the source. I have never liked the weak crap you can get in the grocery store and also grew up with fine vinegar. This stuff is thick and dark and you can’t see through it–it’s a whole other realm of wonderful–if you have ordinary vinegar you might want to use more as you like)

● 1 tbls paprika

● Salt to taste

I cut up everything in relatively large chunks just for ease.  If you can cut some of the veggies before hand and saute them, that’s better, but this was quick and easy which is often necessary for me these days. Then whether you puree it at the end is a matter of taste. If you cut the pieces smaller it’s a nice chunky soup if not pureed.

I just did big chunks and threw all the ingredients in a pot and let it cook for about an hour and a half. I then let it cool a bit and pureed it in a blender.

If you are able to eat dairy (I’m not these days), topping the soup with yogurt or sour cream would be delightful.