Sweet and Sour Borscht Recipe - Aish.com (2024)

FAQs

What makes borscht sour? ›

Both variants typically contain beetroots and onions, and are flavored with beet sour, vinegar or citric acid for tartness and beet sugar for sweetness. Galician Jews traditionally liked their borscht particularly sweet.

Its sweetness comes from the beets, onions, and cabbage, and its tartness from tomatoes and vinegar. Some meat can be added for richness. For a better borscht experience, many people enjoy adding sour cream, yogurt, or fresh herbs. It's warm, sweet, full of umami, and sour all in one bowl.

The Polish word barszcz means borscht, but this soup is slightly different. Whereas traditional borscht is an opaque purple and commonly includes meat, tomatoes, and cabbage, barszcz is more of a basic beet broth that is somewhat translucent, whether red or white in color.

Russian borscht will commonly include cabbage and potatoes, as well as meat. The basic Polish barszcz includes onions, garlic, carrots, and celery.

Add an extra 1 tsp (4.8 g) of baking soda to your soup if it's still sour. Stir the baking soda into your soup, once again waiting for the powder to bubble and settle. Taste the soup again to see if the flavor is any better. If not, continue adding baking soda in 1 tsp (4.8 g) to your soup.

It's standard for Ukrainian cooks to use pork in their Borscht and top it off with sour cream, whereas Russian cooks are more likely to use beef. Furthermore, Ukrainians will offer buns with their bortsch, and Russians will offer a native bread known as “black bread.”

To add sweetness without sugar, try coconut, vanilla, or date, suggests Clean Eating Magazine, but for many soup recipes, sugar can help turn up the flavor volume of the original recipe.

Borscht should be a hearty, yet sophisticated dish: a bowlful of sweet, sour and savoury flavours, rather than simply a vehicle for beetroot. It takes a bit of work – but with a dollop of rich sour cream, and a sprig of aromatic dill, it's one of the world's great soups.

Borscht is quintessentially Russian. A single bowl of that ruby-red beetroot soup, served with a ladleful of smetana (sour cream) and a hunk of black bread, conjures up images of Red Square and St Basil's Cathedral almost as much as a glass of vodka or a spoonful of caviar.

This soup from Eastern Europe is rich in essential nutrients that provide numerous benefits. Additionally, it's a low-calorie option that can be easily adapted to fit various dietary needs, including vegetarian and vegan lifestyles. Is borscht healthy for you? Rest assured, it certainly is.

Should I peel beets for soup? ›

Forget what you thought you knew about food prep: You don't HAVE to peel your vegetables (well, most of them, anyway).

A traditional dish of the Eastern Slavs, it is a common first course in Ukrainian cuisine.” Admittedly, the wider, non-Slavic world views borsch as Russian, while Poles know it only as beloved Polish barszcz. This is also problematic since at least half of Ukraine was occupied by Poland for several centuries.

In another pot, chunks of potato and cabbage bobbed together in boiling water. Marina, 65, was making her mother's recipe for borscht, a soup made from softened vegetables and meat when it's available. It's served with a dollop of sour cream and, on the side, a few slices of dense, dark bread rubbed with raw garlic.

Its Ukrainian-ish Origins

A commonly accepted theory is that the word borscht comes from the Slavic “borschevik,” which means “hogweed.” In early Slavic cuisine, hogweed stems, leaves and flowers were often cooked into a soup or fermented, yielding something akin to sauerkraut.

Martseniuk says the key to good borscht is acidity: “Either lemon juice or white vinegar is important to help keep the color.” Without it, your soup can turn slightly muddy and brown, a far cry from the brilliant characteristic hue you're going for.

Yes, beets taste earthy and a little bitter. While this isn't a bad thing, Martinez says they're best when paired with bright, sweet, and fresh flavors. If you're boiling them, add plenty of salt (as if you were boiling pasta) and about a quarter-cup of red wine vinegar to the water.

Beetroots can taste bitter due to compounds like geosmin and saponins. To reduce bitterness when eating them as a vegetable, choose young beetroots, peel and cook them, combine with other flavors, blanch them, or remove the skin before cooking. 2nd method you can boil beetroot to reduce bitterness before cooking.

Cooking Time and Temperature: Beets can lose their vibrant red color if they are overcooked or cooked at high temperatures for too long. If you cooked the beets for an extended period or at a high temperature, it could cause them to lose some of their color intensity, resulting in a more orange appearance.

Like red borscht, green borscht features those same tender potatoes, golden onions and carrots, and the obligatory dollop of sour cream at the end. But that's where the similarities stop. A mountain of greens goes in, and just when you think the soup can't possibly take any more, a good deal of herbs is added as well.