It’s Seriously Soup day today, featuring one of my favorite bloggers, Serena, who authors a blog called Seriously Soupy. Serena started Seriously Soupy as a creative outlet for herself after her first daughter was born, which combined her passion for cooking with an interest in learning more about soups and soup making. Since it started, she has given soup tours and taught soup classes and has a catalog of over 100 soups on the site! You can join Serena on her Soupy journey at SeriouslySoupy.com and twice a month you can find her here, at My Judy the Foodie, sharing her wisdom and helping demystify the world of soup.
I have may memories of my dad eating Borscht, no one else in my family would touch it! Let’s just say beets had little presence in my house growing up. Now, I can’t get enough of them. You can imagine how excited I was to receive Serena’s latest recipe…
Here’s what Serena has to say:
I have been meaning to try my hand at borscht for awhile on Soupy but for reason I haven’t gotten around to it until this week. I didn’t know that much about the soup – except that it was a Russian soup that included beets. When I read more about it, I learned that borscht (or bortsch, borstch, borsh, barszcz, and borshc) is a regional cuisine from Central and Eastern Europe, that depending on the country, can be served hot or cold and whose ingredients vary just as much as how the soup is pronounced.
For example, hot borscht (generally from Poland) is made with beets, potatoes, celery, and even bacon while the cold borscht may have tomatoes, cucumbers, and cream. There are also borscht recipes that include meat and mushrooms and those that have cabbage and buttermilk. Since the temps are dropping, I decided to try a hot borscht and based my recipe on ideas and some ingredients from “The Soup Bible” and “Simply Recipes.” Sort of a fusion of the two, my borscht was pureed but also had chunks of beets that resulted in a delicious and sweet soup.
Since there are so many possibilities, I look forward to trying another type of borscht very soon-until then enjoy!
Borscht Soup
Ingredients:
- 3 cups of water
- 1/2 yellow onion, chopped
- 1 stalk of celery, chopped
- 4 beets, peeled and chopped
- 10 baby carrots, chopped – or 4 large carrots
- 1 apple, peeled and chopped – I used gala
- 1/2 cup of mushrooms, chopped
- 1 red pepper, chopped
- 1 teaspoon of red wine vinegar
- Handful of fresh dill, chopped
- dollop of sour cream
- 2 teaspoons of thyme
- 2 tablespoons of butter
- 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
- 2 tablespoons of vegetable oil
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions:
- Peel and chop the beets and the onion and set aside.
- Chop the red pepper, mushrooms, apple, and carrots and celery.
- Add 1 cup of water to a pot, along with butter and olive oil and set to a medium heat.
- When the water starts to boil, add the vegetables and the apple and set to a medium heat for 20 minutes, checking on it periodically. Add the the rest of the water, thyme, lemon juice, and vinegar.
- Cover and let cook on a low flame for 30 minutes. Drain some of the water (about 75%) and set aside.
- Remove some chucks of beets and set aside. Add the remaining contents to a blender, along with the rest of the water.
- If you find that the soup is too thick, add more water.
- Pour into a bowl and add the beet chunks, along with sour cream and dill for a garnish.
- Enjoy!
remember grandma used to make borscht and add a dollop of sour cream