borscht (thing)

Stalks of celery? Potatoes? Pickled beets?! Nyet, nyet, nyet! This is борщ (barshch) the way Comrade Ulyanov meant it to be. (Although this is admittedly a bit more elaborate than everyday Russian fare, so no worries if you don't have all listed veggies or spices on hand.)

Fenno-Russian Barshch (Borssikeitto)

Ingredients

• 1 liter stock (meat or veggie, bouillon cubes OK)
• 5-6 beetroots
• 100 grams cabbage
• 1 small carrot
• 1/4 celery root (aka celeriac, but not stalks!)
• 1 medium onion
• 1 clove garlic
• 1 tbsp vinegar (ideally red wine vinegar)
• 2 tbsp oil
• 1 bay leaf
• a dash of thyme (ideally a fresh sprig)
• salt and pepper to taste

Optional extra for meat eaters: around 50g of bacon or ham. (Finns actually like to add in chopped wieners to appease the kids, but I've always felt this to be a sacrilege of the worst sort.)

Instructions

1. Dice the onion finely.
2. With the help of a food processor if at all possible (otherwise this will take you all day), peel and grate all the veggies.
   • Warning: Peeling beetroot is seriously messy and grated beetroot stains everything it touches. Cloth yourself appropriately, coat work surfaces, prepare everything else first, and once finished wash any wood/plastic objects before they permanently turn purple. (sneff even recommends wearing gloves, but the stains on your hands will usually rub off in a day...)
3. In a big soup pot, fry the onion in oil until it wilts. Add bacon/ham if you wish.
4. Add in all the grated veggies and cook, stirring gently, until the beetroot starts to "bleed" juice to the bottom of the pot.
5. Add stock, finely chopped garlic and thyme. Bring to a boil.
6. Cook on low heat until done, at least half an hour and more won't hurt. You'll know it's close to finished when the celery root turns from white to purple.
7. Titrate in the vinegar until it tastes Good^(TM). Adjust with salt and pepper.
8. Done!

Serving

The above serves 4 people as a full meal and even more as an appetizer. The obligatory accompaniments are sour cream (smetana) in a separate dish and Russian black bread. If served as an appetizer, you may wish to put it through a blender to make it into a pretty purple liquid.

Side Effect Warning

Consumption of larger quantities of beetroot tends to result in certain chromatic aberrations in your digestive byproducts. Rest assured, this is only a sign of gentle high-fiber colon cleansing, not impending death from anal hemorrhage.