The Best Borsht

I think I made the best borsht of my life today.

To be honest, most every time I make or eat a borsht, inbetween spoonfuls I moan: “The Best Borsht ever”. But yesterday, with this borsht, even my husband–Anglo-Scots through and through, someone who didn’t grow up on borsht but enjoyed it during student visits to Russia, agreed: Best Ever.

I’ve been trying to figure out why. I mean, it looks just like ordinary vegetable borsht: shocking, neon pink. The colour that sets borsht lovers into a sort of frisson of happy anticipation and borsht-haters into abject fear; in other words the way borsht is meant to be. Yet something in this borsht transcended ordinary: it tastes: complex, healthy, refreshing, delicious……Was it the freshness of the beet/beetroots? probably yes. Was it the delicacy of the Savoy cabbage, or the addition of both butternet squash (sweet) and green beans (slightly bitter and green gardeny)? Yes also. Was it that last minute brainstorm of splashing in pickle juice? I have no doubt about it.

Most of all, somehow, after 6 months of cancer treatment and now, looking towards the future and beginning to feel better: this soup, it tastes encouraging! If that makes sense? and with each spoonful I feel clearer about life and the future.

Vegetable Borsht of Encouragement and Clarity (Physically, its really just a simple vegetable borsht with a splash of pickle juice–spiritually: eating this borsht was “a moment”)
Serves 4 or 2 people over the course of several meals
Borsht can take so many forms: borsht with meat (such as Eastern European in other words someone in the family made it this way and we never figured out where they came from, of long simmered beef, and there is the French borsht that a cookbook friend, Georgeanne Brennan, prepares, staring with “a whole duck”). There is borsht with only vegetables too. We have hot borsht (not only a soup but a Bay Area Klezmer band) filled with cabbage and vegetables and cold borsht that is mostly beets, a shimmering clear jewel-like liquid. There is thick pureed borsht–such as one I ate in Paris topped with a scattering of chopped hazelnuts and dill, and thin clear borsht such as the Polish Christmastime soup that comes to the table floating the tiniest delicate wild-mushroom stuffed pasta, ushki. Then there is borsht with lots of chunks of vegetables in it, a simple garden soup really; what makes it borsht is the beets/beetroots and the sweet-sour balance of seasoning.

Many add potatoes: cooked separately so they don’t cloud up or weigh down the bright light soup. One of my favourite childhood treats was going to Canters Restaurant in Los Angeles where you can order hot borsht with cold potatoes or cold borsht with hot the potatoes; either way you get maximum borsht absorance into the spuds while the soup retains its clarity.

Basically, a borsht can have so many forms: its all about spirit rather than letter of the recipe. The vegetables can vary, so can the meats. Borsht is really the soupe sans frontiers: in India there is a wonderful beet/beetroot soup, a borsht really, filled with indian spices and sometimes turmeric-tinted meat-filled dumplings. And the last time I made my very Jewish borsht I added leftover Greek stuffed cabbage to the soup at the last minute to warm through. Wonderful.

5-6 medium large-ish beets, peeled and cut into bite sized chunks
1 small Savoy cabbage, cut into bite sized chunks
1 red onion, or about 5-8 small shallots, or 2 large-type torpedo shallots, peeled and sliced or coarsely chopped
2-3 whole garlic cloves, peeled or not, as you like
Several large slices of hubbard or other firm winter squash, peeled and cut into bite sized pieces (in volume about 2-3 cups worth, a few handfuls, we’re talking aproximations and very very loose measurements here
1 tin/can 400-ish g/ 13 is oz chopped tomatoes plus their juice
About 2 litres/ 2 quarts mixture half water, half broth or all water plus one or two stock/bouillion cubes
Handful green beans, topped and tailed then cut into bite sized lengths
2-3 tablespoons sugar or honey
Sour salt–citric acid; several small pinches to taste, or use vinegar, but really: sour salt is indepensible to a good borsht
About 1/4 cup pickle juice, or more, to taste (you can use kosher kill pickles or Polish slightly sweet pickles; I used French cornichons pickle liquid with its lovely tarragon and mustard seed scent)
To serve:
A few drops vinegar in each bowl
Sour cream
Chives, snipped into tiny bits

Into a large soup pot place the beets, cabbage, onion, garlic, hubbard squash and tomatoes then add the water/broth to the pot.

Bring to the boil, reduce heat and simmer until the beets and squash are tender, maybe 30-40 minutes.

Add the green beans, sugar/honey, citric acid, and continue to cook another 15-20 minutes.

When all the vegetables are tender, adjust the sweet-sour balance with sugar/honey, and citric acid, then add the pickle juice and warm through together.

To serve, and by the way its even better the next day and the day after that though i wouldn’t go much further than a couple of days, heat the soup through, and ladle it into bowls, each bowl with a few drops of vinegar added. Top each bowlful with a spoonful or two of sour cream or creme fraiche or Greek yogurt, then sprinkle with chives.

Sour rye bread with butter is pretty much perfection with a bowl of borsht. If you can access to good sour rye bread, now is the time.

2 Comments

  • Annie says:

    Yummy.
    Do you ever ferment beets? You know I’m a bit of a obsessive about the health benefits of facto-fermentation. You could start your next (best) borsht with a russell. And give your body those good microorganisms. xxx

    • Hi Annie, i’ve never made russell before; my grandfather did, though, way back when. i might try since i have some beetroot in the garden. i love pickled everything, but especially, always and always, i loved fresh pickled cucumbers, salt-brined, lacto-fermented deliciousness. and sauerkraut. oh and my new true love, which pickle themselves so quickly: cherry tomatoes.

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