Russian Cabbage Borscht

YUM! I have never before prepared Borscht, but I decided to try it today to make soup in a color fitting for Valentine's day.
I loved the mix of different vegetables, and the beet definitely gave it that dark red color I was looking for.
The only deviation I made in the recipe is that the vegetables were still pretty chunky after the full cooking time. I cooked it an additional 15 minutes, and then took a coarse potato masher to it to break up the slices of beet. This rating is based on two votes of 5 and two vote of 3, which revealed this to be an adult-friendly dish.

It was only recently that I tasted borscht for the first time, and I knew I had to learn how to make it. It's fantastic comfort food; satisfying and rich, with balanced sweetness from the beets.

This recipe has the added benefit of being dead easy to make, especially if you let the food processor do the chopping like I did. (Like Queezle_Sister, I found some of the beet and carrot pieces too big at the end of cooking, so I hit it with the immersion blender to break them down a bit.)

I'll add a serving suggestion: horseradish. It adds a pleasant note of heat and a touch of acid to the soup. And don't forget a loaf of black bread.

This is a hearty borscht, heavier on the cabbage and potato than some variations. I have made this a few times and agree that it improves the recipe to use an immersion blender or similar to make it more of a puree. I also find I can hardly taste the recommended 1-2 Tbsp of cider vinegar and have to double it to give it that borscht tang I like.

I sliced the beets quite thin but still had to cook them for longer than 30 minutes, and just cooked the soup longer to make sure they were soft after putting them in.

After blending, it's very thick and you can easily add another cup or more of water to thin it.

I grew up eating variations of this soup and my favourite has always been one that’s jam-packed with vegetables. This recipe fits the bill.

Previous reviewers of this recipe have commented on the awkward size of the vegetables “ I make the adjustment before cooking by dicing, not slicing, the potatoes, and shredding the peeled beets. I make one other adjustment to the recipe, a trick I learned from my mother that prevents the leaching of all of the beets’ glorious colour out to the broth: I cook only 1 raw beet with the potato; the remaining 2-3 beets are roasted, peeled, shredded and added to the soup at the end of cooking to be heated through. This way, most of them retain their true colour while intensifying the colour of the broth.

To make this a more substantial soup, I often add white beans; with this batch, I added the fresh beet greens to the soup along with the roasted beets.