Cold borscht with hot potatoes and yoghurt

Cold borscht with hot mashed potatoes? Think of hot apple pie with ice cream. The sensation is similar, but savoury rather than sweet.

Cold borscht with hot potatoes and yoghurt

                                                 Yield: 4 servings

Ingredients:

2 medium beets

4 cups water

2-3 sprigs fresh dill for borscht, plus 1 sprig for garnish

2 teaspoons brown sugar

2-3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

¼ teaspoon sea salt

2 medium potatoes, boiled, whipped

½ tablespoon butter

2 tablespoons milk

Greek yoghurt

Preparation:

1. Thoroughly wash beets under running water to remove sand and debris. Remove any wilted or discoloured tops and roots. Place whole beets in the basket of a food steamer or pressure cooker. Steam according the instructions in your steamer or pressure cooker manual. When cooked, remove beets to a heat-proof container and set aside to cool. Reserve cooking fluid for use in this borscht.

2. When beets are cool enough to handle, slip the peels away. Dice. Place in a non-reactive cooking pot. Strained the reserved cooking fluid and top it up with fresh water to make 4 cups of liquid. Add whole sprigs of dill. Bring to the boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes.

3. Remove and discard dill. Add lemon juice, sugar and salt. Stir to combine. Turn off heat and allow borscht to cool until the borscht is no longer steaming.

4. Pour borscht into a blender. Pulse to a thin puree.

5. Remove borscht to a lidded container and place in the refrigerator to cool completely.

6. Prior to serving borscht, cook potatoes with skins on. While still hot, mash them. Add butter and milk, then whip them to a smooth paste.

7. Ladle cold borscht into bowls. Place a dollop of hot whipped potato into each bowl of borscht, and top it off with a tablespoon of soured cream and a small slip of fresh dill.

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Swedish baked beets

Swedish baked beets are traditionally eaten with salted fish. They are also delicious served with beef, lamb, bison, or wild fowl. Eat this dish however you choose: hot out of the oven, at room temperature, or cold as an alfresco summer picnic dish.

Swedish baked beets

                                                                               Yield: 4-6 servings

Oven: 240℃  (460℉)

Ingredients:

3 medium-sized beets

1 large red onion

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

sea salt

fresh ground black pepper

½ - ¾ cup commercial soured cream

Garnish: 5 -6 sprigs fresh dill

Preparation:

1. Wash beets. Remove beet leaves, leaving about 2.5 cm. (1 in.) of stem attached to the roots.

2. Using 1 tablespoon of olive oil, coat beet roots in oil. Place whole beet roots in an aluminium foil cooking wrap, add a dash of salt and pepper, and close the foil wrap securely. Place the foil wrapped beet roots in a heat-proof baking tray. Bake at 240℃   for approximately 1.5 hours. 

Cooking time required will vary with the beet's size, origin and type, and with your elevation above sea level. Wearing heat-proof oven mitts, test the roots for doneness by gently pressing the them with your fingers.If the root gives way slightly, baking is complete.

3. Peel red onion and slice into 8 to 16 wedges, depending upon the size of the onion. Place onion wedges on a baking tray. Drizzle with the other tablespoon of olive oil. Add salt and pepper, if preferred. Bake at the same time as the beets. The onion wedges should require approximately 20 - 30 minutes if placed below the beet roots. Less time will be required if the wedges are placed high in the oven. 

When the onion wedges are just slightly singed on some tips, remove from the oven, loosely cover, and set aside.

Roasted red onion wedges

4. When the beet roots are baked, remove them from the oven. Slip the peels off. Quarter the beets into wedges and, possibly, divide the wedges again into bite-sized wedges, depending upon the size of the beets.

Baked beets, fresh from the oven

5. Arrange baked beet and red onion wedges in a serving dish or on a serving plate. Either add dollops of sour cream over the vegetables, or place the sour cream in a separate serving dish. Garnish with fresh dill. 

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Pressure-cooker borscht

The borscht produced by this recipe is actually quite different from Borsht No.1. The beet is cooked first, then the remaining root vegetables and cabbage. All the ingredients are brought together just before the borscht is eaten. Aficionados of borscht will certainly notice the difference. They'll love it anyway.

Pressure-cooker borscht

                                                                              Yield: 4 - 6 servings

Ingredients:

1 medium-sized beet, about 7.5 cm. (3 in) in diameter

3 cups water

1 cup purple cabbage, grated

½ cup red onion, diced

1 carrot, grated

½ cup rutabaga, diced

1 clove fresh garlic, minced

3 sprigs fresh dill (whole)

2 - 3 cups pot liquor from steaming the beet

1 tablespoon lemon juice

sea salt, to taste

freshly ground black pepper, to taste

2 tablespoons commercial soured cream for each bowl of borscht

Chopped beet (center), chopped rutabaga (top right),
grated carrot (bottom right), and grated purple cabbage

Preparation:

1. Thoroughly wash the vegetables.

2. Place beet in pressure cooker with 3 cups of water. Raise temperature to boiling on 'High' heat, then reduce heat to 'Medium' and cook for 10 minutes. Turn off heat, leaving the pressure cooker as it is to steam until the safety lock releases. 

3. Meanwhile, prepare the remaining vegetables as indicated above, i.e., grate the cabbage and carrot, peel and dice the rutabaga and red onion, and mince the garlic. 

4. When the pressure cooker's safety lock releases, remove beet to an air-tight container and leave to cool. Pour the liquid from the pressure cooker into a heat-proof container and reserve.

5. Place a steamer basket inside the pressure cooker. (See Pressure cooker - Part 2 to see what a steamer basket looks like if you don't know). Add three cups of water to the pressure cooker, just enough to touch the bottom of the a heat-proof, non-reactive dish, such as Pyrex™ or Corning Ware™, which you will place inside the steamer basket. 

Chopped and grated vegetables, except beets,
ready for cooking in the pressure cooker

5. Add the fresh dill and prepared vegetables, except the beet, to the dish inside the pressure cooker. Place the lid on the pressure cooker and cook these vegetables as you did the beet.

6. Meanwhile, peel and dice the beet, making a small dice. 

7. When the pressure cooker's safety lock releases, the prepared vegetables are finished cooking. Remove them to a non-reactive* soup pot, such as the glass pot shown in the image below. 

8.  Add diced beet, and the pot liquor reserved from cooking the beet. Bring to boil, then remove from the heat.

9. Add lemon juice and stir.

Beets and all borscht ingredients melding flavours prior to serving

10. Ladle into soup bowls and top each with commercial soured cream.

* The purpose of using a non-reactive cooking pot is to retain as much colour -- and therefore, phyto-nutrients -- as possible in borscht.

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Borscht No. 1

Admit it. This is what you've been waiting for. Borscht! Beautiful, filling, delightful borscht: the Monarch of Soups.

Er, okay...maybe not. But it is delicious.

Borscht No. 1

                                                        Yield: 6 - 8 servings

This borscht requires the use of black garlic which lends a somewhat beefy flavour to the broth.

Borscht with soured cream

Ingredients:

4 small beets, about 3 - 5 cm. (1.5 - 2") in diameter

1 carrot

1 medium-sized red potato

1/2 cup red onion, diced

1 cup grated purple cabbage

2 cloves black garlic, finely chopped

4 sprigs fresh dill

3 - 5 cups chicken stock or water from steaming vegatables

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar or lemon juice

freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup commercial soured cream

Beets, carrot, potato, black garlic and purple cabbage

Preparation:

1. Thoroughly scrub beets, potato and carrot under running water to remove sand and debris. Remove any wilted or discoloured tops and roots. Place whole beets in the basket of a food steamer or pressure cooker. Steam vegetables. If using a pressure cooker, follow the user manual. Otherwise, when a fork can easily pierce a beet to the centre, turn heat off. Remove vegetables to a heat-proof container and set aside to cool. Reserve fluid from steamer to use in this borscht preparation, or else store for later use.

Steam rises off the beets, carrot
 and potato cooked in a pressure cooker

2. When beets, potato and carrot are cool enough to handle, slip the peels away. Dice. Reserve. 

Diced beets, carrot and potato

3. Place peeled and diced red onion in the soup pot together with diced black garlic, whole sprigs of dill and 3 cups of chicken stock (or the liquid of your choice). cover. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes.

Black garlic and fresh dill

4.  Add diced beets, potato and carrot. Bring to boil, then reduce heat to simmer for 5 minutes to enable flavours to mingle.

5. Add grated purple cabbage. Raise to boiling point, then reduce heat to simmer for 10 minutes.

Purple cabbage cooking in the beet mixture

6. Remove from heat. Add freshly ground black pepper to your taste. Add red wine vinegar or lemon juice. Stir.

7. Ladle into bowls. Top each bowl of borscht with a tablespoon of soured cream.

You will want second servings. 

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