The recipe of the Ukrainian borsch is taken from an aged cook-book of my beloved great-grandma… and was a bit adjusted by myself especially when it concerns the sequences of setting the ingredients. This recipe is not something specially worshiped... this is just the way I cook it… That’s why I call this course: ua-borsch a-la gross =)
First of all, the ingredients: 1/2 kg of meat (pork), bacon (no way to do this without it), 3 beet-root, 4-5 carrots, 3 garden onions, 1 cabbage, 5 tomatoes, 3 sweet peppers, 7-8 potatoes, 4-5 cloves of garlic, batch of parsley.
This amount is for approximately 3 liters of water. We would need a pot, pour 3 liters of water in there, put the meat in and put it on fire. As it comes to boiling we add some salt at your taste and take the scum off the bouillon to make it crystal clear.
While the water comes to boiling we start cutting vegetables. Need to note right away that Ukrainian borsch hates ragged vegetables that is why no grates or grating machines allowed (!!!), everything should be cut with the knife. We start with beet-roots, leaving one uncut…
Then we cut carrots, leaving one carrot uncut…
After this we cut onions and leave one uncut as well… Just a small tip for you: to avoid crying when cutting onions you need to drink some water and keep it in your mouth while cutting.
By this time the water in the pot starts boiling, the scum is removed and 10 minutes after the water starts boiling you need to put one uncut beet-root, one uncut carrot and one uncut onion into the pot… The kitchen fire should be set to low and the rest of the procedure will be cooked at the low heat, the pot should be partially covered with the top, leaving some gap…
Then we continue with cutting vegetables – the cabbage would be next…
It is time to prepare the fried dressing for our borsch now. We put frying pan on oven and put some sunflower oil into it.
Once the oil warmed up, we put all onions we have previously cut and fry it till it gets golden-brownish color.
While the onions are being fried, we cut the sweet pepper…
…potatoes…
…and put all beet-roots we have cut into the pot with bouillon…
When the onion is close to the golden colour, we add all cut carrots into the frying pan, close it with the top and leave it stewing for 5-7 minutes… Ready fried dressing looks like this…
5 minutes after the cabbage was put into the pot and the bouillon starts boiling again we put all cut cabbage into the pot… 5 minutes after the bouillon starts boiling again we put the potatoes…
…and we return back to cutting vegetables, the tomatoes should be next…
Once the bouillon starts boiling again we put the cut tomatoes into the pot…
After this we start cutting bacon and garlic…
5 minutes after the tomatoes were put and the water starts boiling again we put all cut sweet pepper in the pot… 3 minutes after the water starts boiling again, we put a previously prepared fried dressing into the pot…
The cut garlic should be chapped adding some salt, I’ve used a regular tea spoon to do this… It should be thoroughly mashed so that the garlic and bacon would give some juice…
All we need is to cut the parsley…
Borsch is almost ready, but to make it truly Ukrainian we need to add bacon and garlic into the pot…
…we turn the fire off right after this and cover the pot with the top completely, 2 minutes later we turn the fire on again and add the parsley into the pot… ua-borsch a-la gross is ready now!
Frankly speaking I’m always anxious to start eating this course, yet I advise you to have some patience and wait at least one our to allow all ingredients join their flavor… In an hour you can start tasting it. By the way, I recommend you to put a bottle of high-quality vodka into the fridge. This dish would be especially good when served with a piece of fresh brown bread, piece of bacon and clove of garlic…
Enjoy the life! =)
P.S. In my view the philosophy of Ukrainian borsch lays in the specific sequence of putting the ingredients to ensure step-by-step flavor making. Trying out different ingredients for several years, I’ve finished up with this particular sequence, and I’ve excluded beans and dill from the set of ingredients (those were in the great-grandma recipe). The beans make the Ukrainian borsch heavier, and the dill messes up the aroma of bacon and garlic.
2006 © by gross
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