January 26, 2005
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It's amazing, the trouble people think I'm going to take to make a
soup. I receive emails from RusCuisine.com, and here is the
recipe Olga sent for borscht:Borscht from Kiev
Ingredients:
STOCK
1 1/2 lb beef chuck
roast boneless
1 lb beef marrow bones
1 lb ham bone meaty
1 each onion
large grated
1 each carrot grated
3 qt water
1 each turnip peeled &
grated
1 each celery rib w/leaves sliced*
3 each dill sprigs*
3 each
parsley sprigs*
12 each black peppercorns whole*
4 each bay
leaves*[Anne's note: this is just for the stock, fercryinoutloud!]
SOUP
3 each beets large peeled grated
4 each potatos peeled
and cubed
16 oz plum tomatoes skinned & coarsely chopped
1 each
onion large chopped
1 each carrot sliced
1 each bell pepper chopped
1/4
cup sunflower oil
1 tsp salt
4 cup cabbage shredded
3 tbsp tomato
paste
6 each prunes pitted & chopped
1 tsp honey
1 tsp black pepper
fresh ground
1/2 cup sour cream or plain yogurt
4 each garlic cloves
minced
2 each bacon strips fried & crumbled
2 tbsp parlsey fresh
chopped
3 tbsp dill fresh choppedMethod:
All ingredients marked with the { * } are to be placed in a
small cloth bag. Tie the bag shut and place into the stock pot. Place meat
bones, meat, and water in alarge stock pot and bring to a boil over high heat.
Skim the foam as needed. Add the remaining stock ingredients, cover, reduce heat
to low and simmer for 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Wash, dry, and
peel the beets. Wrap them in aluminum foil and bake in oven for 1 hour 15
minutes. Remove from oven, allow to cool, and dice 1/4". Remove the ham bone,
meat & marrow bones from the stock. Set the marrow bones aside. Strain the
stock through a fine sieve into a clean pot. Discard the solids.
Bring the
stock to a boil add the tomatos, potatos and salt & pepper and cook for 10
minutes on low heat covered. Cook the onions, carrot,& Bell pepper in a
castiron skillet for approx. 5 minutes.. Stir in the cabbage and continue to
cook the vegetables for 10 more minutes. Remove the vegetables from heat and add
to the stock. Sprinkle the juice of a lemon over the beets and add them to the
stock. Add the tomatos, tomato paste, and honey to the stock and continue to
boil. Remove the meat from the bones, strip the marrow out of the marrow bones,
and cube the beef 1/2" & add all of this to the stock and cook for 15
minutes more. Remove from heat and serve after adding a generous dollop of sour
cream to each bowl.She's got to be kidding.
Comments (9)
She must be kidding! For Pete's sake, you can't make a decent stock in only a couple of hours - it takes days, I tell ya!
And no I'm not kidding - I'm actually in the middle of writing a blog post about the value of properly made stock. Hopefully I'll get it up tonight.
Oh, you would!
Grumble, grumble, grumble...
Okay, I've made stock "from scratch" and don't mind it a bit. But often this is the recipe I use.....Water (how ever much the soup recipe of choice calls for)
Better than boullion (it comes in a glass jar, I like the vegetable one), the amount would be however much should go into whatever the amount of water is I'm using.
It's quick, it's easy and so far no complaints.
Something tells me that badgermum's recipe is a little more difficult....
My theory about recipes is: if they have more than 6 standard ingredients, things even I have on hand, I move on.
Makes you wonder what it actually tastes like just doing all that...pretty good, I should hope. Of course, a good Russian cook probablt has all that stuff at hand. Plus, having a child's help might do quite a bit to speed the process up. But in spite of the fact that I've heard that "good stock" takes so much time, I've often found that just making the soup, and waiting a couple of days to eat it is a not-bad alternative. Also, I've taken to using consomme instead of beef broth. Even Cook's Illustrated, those paragons of culinary perfection, have recipes for beef or chicken stock that take only a couple of hours, not including the prep.
But who in Ukraine or Russia has the time?
There are very, very few housewifes in those countries...everybody works. Except the elderly, so maybe it's the babushkas who are taking hours to make borscht.
Dmitry and I? We drive to Taste of Europe in Arlington and get some.
Of course, alot of the recipes for 'classic' this or that would leave most American cooks nonplussed too. So I think what you got was a Russian version of a Julia Child recipe.
I finally got my comments on making stock finished. I didn't post a recipe, since I'm not too sure about copyright stuff, but you could easily make the stock using Olga's recipe - just make a lot of it three or four days before you need it, then freeze what you don't need in quart-size Ziploc bags. As I mentioned at my blog, it's really not very hard to put together, and after you've brought it to a boil and skimmed off the foam, all you have to do is keep it at a simmer and check it once or twice day to be sure there's still enough water. You can even add to the stockpot ends of carrots or left over bits of onion, etc., from other stuff you're cooking... Waste not, want not, and all that, dontcha know.
What "value" there is in taking three days to make something that can be made with instant soup base and water, that is *in proportion* to the marginal amount of labor, I cannot fathom.
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