Mishalak's Borsch
Jul. 30th, 2003 01:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mishalakI'm cooking for Grandmama today. This is what I'm making:
Ingredients
2 1/2 chuck roast
2-3 beef bones
1 pound of spicy sausage filling
Bunch of beets cut into 1/2 in strips (about 4-6 depending on size)
One large onion chopped up
3 bay leaves
8 whole peppercorns
8-10 whole allspice
4 carrots pealed/cut
2-3 tomatoes or 1 can tomato sauce
2-3 potatoes
1 green pepper, seeded cut up
1/2 cabbage or the leaves from the beets
Salt to taste
Sour cream for garnish
For Serving: A Black Rye Bread
Directions
First off you do not need all the ingredients on the above list. Making Borsch (or any other soup for that matter) is not an exact science, so feel free to leave out whatever you wish. Or to experiment.
What needs to be made first is essentially beef broth. The way to do that is with beef bones, whether covered in meat or not. I have come to prefer meatless soup bones, but neck bones or even chuck will make a fine broth. The reason I like doing it meatless is because I prefer borsch with pork sausage rather than beef, and that's what I did today.
Whatever method you choose the bones should be washed a little bit to help get rid of the bone chips. Then place them in your crock-pot or or kettle and cover them with water. To this is added the 3 bay leaves, 8 peppercorns, 8 allspice, and two pinches of salt. If using a crock-pot set it on low for about eight hours, on the stove top it should take 2-3 hours at a simmer.
Tips: Putting the allspice and peppercorns into a tea ball makes them much easier to remove. Also you might want to skip ahead a bit and prepare some of your other ingredients so there is less work in adding them later.
If you are adding sausage to the borsch it works out best if you cook them soon after you set the soup bones to cooking. Roll pieces of the uncooked sausage into flattened balls and cook them in a skillet without any extra fat or oil in small batches. Once they are done set them out on paper towels to drain and set aside to be added after the broth is done. (Try to get the pork well cooked, but don't worry if they are not perfect, they are going to get thoroughly cooked later on.)
Now you have a decision. You can either get out all the little bits of bone that will have settled to the bottom during cooking of the broth or you can leave them in and just not scrape the bottom of the pot too much. I often do the latter as I am not the most finicky of eaters and I don't mind extra calcium. But if you are doing this for a fancy dinner or something it would be a good idea to gently pour the broth into another container after you removed the beef bones. Give the pot a scrub and rinse it out then pour the broth back in through a cheesecloth or strainer. Then put it back on the heat.
Now is the time for meat. If you are doing this with beef cut it up and put it back in the broth. If with sausage this is the time to put in your precooked pieces. Then set the crock-pot on high or turn up the simmer a bit if doing this on the stovetop.
Cut up your beets either at this point or earlier, then add them to the soup. The easiest way to deal with the beets is to have the ones with tops still attached. This provides a convenient handle to hold while peeling the beats. Once you have a beet pealed cut the top off and cut it into strips of finger size or narrower, put them in the pot and note the time. It will be ready from about 90 minutes after you put in the last of the 5 beets. Don't throw away the beet tops. You'll wash them and add them to the soup later. (Trust me, it is good, thought I couldn't today since the beets didn have leaves.)
Chop up the onion into smallish pieces, less than 2 cm (1/2 inch) long. Then cut up the green bell pepper (be sure to remove the core) into pieces no more than 2 cm square. Add both to the soup. Now cube your 3 potatoes into pieces about 1 cm on a side, but there no need to be precise. Note that if you have scrubbed them well there is no need to take off the skins of the potatoes. I don't add my potatoes until the last 45 minutes of cooking, because I like them a little less well done, but it is perfectly permissible to add them earlier. I also add the can of chopped tomato and the washed and chopped beet tops right after I add the potato cubes, no less than 30 minutes from the finish time. The beet leaves should be cut into long ribbons about 2-3 cm (1 inch) in width. Leave out the stems though, I made the mistake of putting them in once and they were unpleasantly stringy.
Once the borsch is done turn off the heat and start serving it up. If will stay hot for quite a while and reheats rather well if you have leftovers. Serve with the sour cream and rye bread (especially black rye or schwartzwalder) is good, but not strictly necessary. I just like a dollop of sour cream in my borsch. It looks and tastes so good that way.
Makes enough for four hungry people or enough for seven if served with other things.
Ingredients
2 1/2 chuck roast
2-3 beef bones
1 pound of spicy sausage filling
Bunch of beets cut into 1/2 in strips (about 4-6 depending on size)
One large onion chopped up
3 bay leaves
8 whole peppercorns
8-10 whole allspice
4 carrots pealed/cut
2-3 tomatoes or 1 can tomato sauce
2-3 potatoes
1 green pepper, seeded cut up
1/2 cabbage or the leaves from the beets
Salt to taste
Sour cream for garnish
For Serving: A Black Rye Bread
Directions
First off you do not need all the ingredients on the above list. Making Borsch (or any other soup for that matter) is not an exact science, so feel free to leave out whatever you wish. Or to experiment.
What needs to be made first is essentially beef broth. The way to do that is with beef bones, whether covered in meat or not. I have come to prefer meatless soup bones, but neck bones or even chuck will make a fine broth. The reason I like doing it meatless is because I prefer borsch with pork sausage rather than beef, and that's what I did today.
Whatever method you choose the bones should be washed a little bit to help get rid of the bone chips. Then place them in your crock-pot or or kettle and cover them with water. To this is added the 3 bay leaves, 8 peppercorns, 8 allspice, and two pinches of salt. If using a crock-pot set it on low for about eight hours, on the stove top it should take 2-3 hours at a simmer.
Tips: Putting the allspice and peppercorns into a tea ball makes them much easier to remove. Also you might want to skip ahead a bit and prepare some of your other ingredients so there is less work in adding them later.
If you are adding sausage to the borsch it works out best if you cook them soon after you set the soup bones to cooking. Roll pieces of the uncooked sausage into flattened balls and cook them in a skillet without any extra fat or oil in small batches. Once they are done set them out on paper towels to drain and set aside to be added after the broth is done. (Try to get the pork well cooked, but don't worry if they are not perfect, they are going to get thoroughly cooked later on.)
Now you have a decision. You can either get out all the little bits of bone that will have settled to the bottom during cooking of the broth or you can leave them in and just not scrape the bottom of the pot too much. I often do the latter as I am not the most finicky of eaters and I don't mind extra calcium. But if you are doing this for a fancy dinner or something it would be a good idea to gently pour the broth into another container after you removed the beef bones. Give the pot a scrub and rinse it out then pour the broth back in through a cheesecloth or strainer. Then put it back on the heat.
Now is the time for meat. If you are doing this with beef cut it up and put it back in the broth. If with sausage this is the time to put in your precooked pieces. Then set the crock-pot on high or turn up the simmer a bit if doing this on the stovetop.
Cut up your beets either at this point or earlier, then add them to the soup. The easiest way to deal with the beets is to have the ones with tops still attached. This provides a convenient handle to hold while peeling the beats. Once you have a beet pealed cut the top off and cut it into strips of finger size or narrower, put them in the pot and note the time. It will be ready from about 90 minutes after you put in the last of the 5 beets. Don't throw away the beet tops. You'll wash them and add them to the soup later. (Trust me, it is good, thought I couldn't today since the beets didn have leaves.)
Chop up the onion into smallish pieces, less than 2 cm (1/2 inch) long. Then cut up the green bell pepper (be sure to remove the core) into pieces no more than 2 cm square. Add both to the soup. Now cube your 3 potatoes into pieces about 1 cm on a side, but there no need to be precise. Note that if you have scrubbed them well there is no need to take off the skins of the potatoes. I don't add my potatoes until the last 45 minutes of cooking, because I like them a little less well done, but it is perfectly permissible to add them earlier. I also add the can of chopped tomato and the washed and chopped beet tops right after I add the potato cubes, no less than 30 minutes from the finish time. The beet leaves should be cut into long ribbons about 2-3 cm (1 inch) in width. Leave out the stems though, I made the mistake of putting them in once and they were unpleasantly stringy.
Once the borsch is done turn off the heat and start serving it up. If will stay hot for quite a while and reheats rather well if you have leftovers. Serve with the sour cream and rye bread (especially black rye or schwartzwalder) is good, but not strictly necessary. I just like a dollop of sour cream in my borsch. It looks and tastes so good that way.
Makes enough for four hungry people or enough for seven if served with other things.
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-08 10:51 pm (UTC)What vodkas are you tasting? I was pleasantly suprised with how well vodka worked in frozen raspberries and cream. I didn't expect it to go so well with the raspberries. The aftertaste was very umm umm. *shrug* nice? Umm I shouldn't eat ice cream at all, so I tend to make SMALL portions of fruit, cream and some ice crystal resisting alcohol when I get the craving. In fact, there is still half a tub of the vodka raspberries in the freezer now, waiting for my next 'fix'.
(no subject)
Date: 2004-10-08 10:56 pm (UTC)I bought a bottle of Colorado Vodka and I have a bottle of Stoli as a baseline to compaire it against. I doubt it will be any better than any other vodka, but I figured I'd give it a chance.