Borscht is a soup found everywhere in Eastern European countries such as Russia and Poland, and is also common in the United States and other Western countries. The main ingredient is beets, and other vegetables such as cabbage and potatoes are often added. Borscht gets its name from the Shanghai literati's transliteration of the Russian word "borscht".

Introduction to Borscht

Jews who immigrated from Eastern European countries such as Russia and Poland were the primary purveyors of the soup around the world, and an area of relatively high Jewish concentration in the northern suburbs of New York City was once called the Borscht Belt or Borscht Circle; Borscht is the Jewish word for the soup, which is written Borsch in Russia, which is derived from the fact that the main ingredient is beetroot. This comes from the Russian name for the main ingredient of the soup, the beet (Beet or Parsnip) - Borsch.

In addition to the main ingredient of beets, borscht is often flavored with other vegetables, such as cabbage and potatoes, and in some cases meat, and it is prepared in a variety of ways. That's because this soup is not the invention of some great chef; in Russia in the past, it was one of the main foods for ordinary people to make ends meet, so how it was made depended largely on what was available in the house. Usually, it was a reflection of everything that was put in it. The simplest borscht has only beets, salt, sugar, pepper and a little lemon juice. Other vegetables that are often added include cabbage, tomatoes, potatoes, celery and onions. The ingredients vary from place to place. Poles often add cabbage and potatoes, and Ukrainians often add tomatoes. Occasionally, brisket is added or the soup is made with clear beef broth. The soup can be enjoyed both hot and cold. This soup can be served hot in the winter or cold in the summer. It is usually garnished with a little foamy sour cream and dill cilantro before serving. Sour and sweet are the hallmarks of borscht.

Related Tropes

Russia in English is RUSSIA, which means Russian style. So the literati in Shanghai pronounced the soup from Russia as "Luosong".

At the time of the October Revolution, a large number of Russians moved to Shanghai, they brought vodka, but also brought the Russian Western cuisine, Shanghai's first Western food club was opened by the Russians. This soup is evolved from the Russian beet soup, which is spicy with acid, more acid than sweet, and Shanghai people are not accustomed to it. Later by the procurement of raw materials and the influence of local tastes, and gradually formed a unique characteristics of the sea in the sweet and sour, sweet in the fragrance, fat and not greasy, fresh and smooth borscht. This sea borscht is not just eat Western food when eating, that is, schools, units, families and Chinese restaurants, is also commonplace. Over time, this soup has formed a variety of schools and branches in Shanghai, the most representative of which are "restaurant school", "cafeteria school" and "family school" and so on. Among them, the "restaurant school" to Huaihai Western cuisine as a representative of the year after the introduction of borscht, after several improvements, updated technology, finally became the leader of the sea borscht, and then, various Western restaurants and even individual Chinese restaurants, have to follow suit. In the "canteen school", also known as the "lane school", the soup is often served in a large noodle bowl or a warm tea bucket, without ketchup or with very little coloring, and the soup is often "clear", with just a few threads of red sausage floating in it, and a few threads of red sausage floating in it. The soup was often "clear water" with a few threads of red sausage floating in it, and the tomatoes were mostly unpeeled, which was very different from the borscht in the Western restaurants. Strangely enough, even this "tomato water" was very tasty, and there are still many high school students who do not want to eat school food, and go to the entrance of the school to buy a bowl of this kind of soup for a couple of dollars, and add slices of bread for their lunch. The "family school" people, neither have the opportunity to learn the Western-style cooking, but also do not want to fall like the "cafeteria school", so they can only figure out their own, research on a variety of ways to cook, which is mainly beef instead of red sausage, and lack of gravy-based.

Borscht practice

Practice a

Raw materials: cabbage 1, 2 carrots, potatoes 3, tomatoes 4, 2 onions, celery 2 petals, half a kilogram of beef, sausage 1 (preferably red sausage).

Seasoning: 1 ear of tomato sauce, 1 bottle of tomato salsa, pepper, 100 grams of cream, one tael of flour, oil, salt and sugar to spare.

Making

1, wash the beef, cut into small pieces. Prepare a soup pot, put most of the pot of water, the beef cold water into the pot, open high heat and boil, change to low heat, with a spoon to remove the foam, smothered for 3 hours.

2, will wash the vegetables one by one, potatoes, carrots, tomatoes, peeled, cabbage cut an inch long diamond, potatoes cut roller block, carrots sliced, tomatoes cut into small pieces, onion shredded, celery diced, red sausage sliced and spare.

3, in the beef broth burned to 3 hours, take a large frying pan, the pan is hot, put 100 grams of oil, cream is also put into 100 grams of oil, oil is hot, first into the potato blocks, sautéed to the outside of the cooked into the red sausage, sautéed, then into the other vegetables, and then into the ketchup and tomato salsa (according to the amount of soup estimate as much as possible to put), into the salt spoonful of high-flame stirring for a minute or two while the heat is all in the soup, soup continues to simmer.

4, and then the frying pan clean, dry, open the pan on low heat to dry, put the flour into the pan, repeatedly stir-fried until the flour is hot, the color is slightly yellow into the soup while it is still hot, stirring with only a large soup ladle. And then simmer for about 20 minutes, according to personal taste put salt and sugar to taste put pepper can be served.

Spoon a bowl, take a piece of whole wheat bread, dip to eat the most delicious, is the authentic Luosong people eat.

Method 2

Ingredients: (for one person) 10g of cream, 15g of onion, 15g of diced carrot, 15g of diced potato, 15g of diced carrot, 300g of beef broth, 20g of diced beef, 40g of cabbage, 15g of diced tomato (peeled and seeded), 0.2g of ground black pepper, 1/2 of a bay leaf, salt to taste, 15g of Sour Cream.

Making

1. Cut the top of tomato with a knife, blanch it in hot water, then soak it in cold water to remove the skin

2. Melt the cream with low heat, add diced onion and sauté it to soften it, then add diced carrots, potatoes and carrots and sauté it to finish it

3. Put the beef broth into the soup and boil it for 15 minutes, then turn the heat down to low to put in the diced beef, cabbage, diced tomato, black pepper and bay leaf, and cook for 15 minutes with low heat

4. Cook for 15 minutes

4. Remove the bay leaf and season to taste.

Method 3

Ingredients: one piece of beef or pork, one onion, one potato, one carrot, one large tomato, tomato sauce, two cloves of garlic, two tablespoons of flour, salt

Making it

1. Cut all ingredients into small pieces (mince the garlic). Garlic and meat, onions, sautéed slightly with tomato sauce, served

3. Boil a pot of hot water, all the ingredients into the boil (the water must cover all the ingredients) to a low heat until the carrots and potatoes become soft can be

4. Add a bowl of flour thickening water Salt Seasoning

Practice 4

Lazy borscht

1. onion a carrot and half a root, American celery, and a quarter of cabbage sliced and sautéed in cream until browned.

2. Open a can of braised beef and add six bowls of water to the pot.

3. Bring to a boil, add one tomato paste (or one-third of a bottle of tomato sauce), vinegar and sugar to taste.

4. Cover and cook over low heat for 20 to 30 minutes.

Method 5

Russian borscht

Materials: one and a half onions (cut into small slices), two potatoes (diced), three carrots (diced), cabbage (cut into small slices), one box of beef/beef tendon (diced), three cloves of garlic (finely chopped), one jar of tomato cans, one jar of ketchup paste (mixed with three large cups of water), salt, black pepper, pepper flakes, some Italian spices, olive oil and some salt, pepper, pepper and cardamom. Some Italian spices, two tablespoons of olive oil

Making

1. Heat the oil, add the garlic and sauté, then add the beef tendon, and then add the onion to soften it.

2. Add the remaining beef and stir-fry until browned, then add the potatoes and carrots to the pan and stir-fry.

3. After about three minutes, add the cabbage and sauté until soft.

4. Then put the seasonings, tomatoes and tomato paste into the pot and cook on low heat for about an hour or more, and then cook the beef until it is soft and cooked through.

The secret to a good borscht

"Borscht" is delicious but difficult to make. If you simply cook the ingredients in one pot, it can only be called "mixed vegetable soup". It is said that more than 50 years ago, on Huaihai Zhong Road (formerly known as Linsen Road), several restaurants dealing with Russian cuisine were opened. Some of these chefs are rumored to be chefs of the czar's aristocratic family, and they are quite famous in St. Petersburg. Their "borscht" is not thick or thin, and the soup is colorful and fragrant, and the secret lies in the 4 frying pans:

1.First, sauté the onion in the frying pan, and be sure to sauté out the aroma;

2.Then, start the frying pan to cook the cabbage, beetroot, cabbage, beetroot, cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, cabbage, cabbage and beetroot. Cabbage, beet, carrots, potatoes and other vegetables stir-fried, will be dehydrated, and then put into the beef broth has been boiled, soup open stew with the fire, can not use the fire, otherwise the soup is not flavorful;

3. tomato sauce must also be stir-fried in oil;

4. frying noodles is more critical, the fire should not be too strong and not too warm, the proportion of oil and flour should be appropriate. Soup will be good, add salt, monosodium glutamate, pepper, and finally into the tomato sauce, oil noodles. It is best to add some butter or whipped cream before serving.

These steps can make a really good bowl of "borscht".