Organic Russian Borscht

The first time I've ever seen and tried this soup in US, I was thinking: boy, is this soup red or what??? But once I had my first sip, I fell in love with this Russian beauty. It's full of earthy flavour of root vegetables and packed with beautiful hues of red and magenta colours.

Typically, this soup is prepared in Russia in the winter due to the availability of the winter root vegetables such as carrots, beets, purple cabbage and potatoes. But luckily in Malaysia, we have them all year round, so sourcing for the ingredients is not a problem.

This is the first time I have ever made Russian Borscht, so I really wanted to make it nice. To give the soup extra flavour and nutrition, I used all organic produce. As I was seasoning the soup, I was reminiscing the original taste when I first tried it 8 years ago (Wow... it has been this long, huh?).

The borscht is SO GOOD that I can have it EVERYDAY!!!

Turned out, it was exactly as how it tasted! I was pretty satisfied with my first attempt and will definitely make it again and again.

Dill sprigs and generous dullops of sour cream were served with the borscht. To my very very own surprise, even Adrian (who was initially intimidated by the colour of the soup) loved it and asked for more!

So, here's my organic Russian borscht recipe for you readers out there who would like to try this exotic soup:

Ingredients:

1L water

500 mL vegetable or chicken stock

1 organic carrot, finely chopped

1 organic red bell pepper, deseeded, finely chopped

2 stalks organic celery, cut cross section

1 large organic beet, finely chopped

6 organic tomatoes, finely chopped

3 organic potatoes, skin peeled, finely chopped

1 organic yellow onion, finely chopped

½ organic purple cabbage, julienned or shredded

½ cup olive oil (hearty) or melted butter (sinful)

1 tub sour cream

8 sprigs fresh dill weed

ground black pepper to season

sea salt to season

Procedure:

1. In a large pot, add water and stock with finely chopped carrot, bell pepper, celery, beet, tomatoes and potatoes. Bring it to a boil, then turn the heat to medium.

2. In a frying pan, sauté onion and purple cabbage shreds with melted butter (hehe… I am sinful when it comes to food) until the cabbage is slightly cooked (about 5 minutes), then turn to medium low heat.

3. Then, pour some stock from the large pot to the frying pan, let the stock cook the cabbage for another 10 minutes.

4. Return cooked cabbage in the stock in the frying pan back to the pot and simmer the soup for another 30 to 45 minutes.

5. It is ready when your kitchen is filled with great smell of the hearty vegetable soup.

6. Season the soup with pepper and salt

Serve it with fresh dill weed and generous dollops of sour cream (it’s even better if crème fraiche is available in your area, substitute it with sour cream)

This borscht pairs perfectly with Sour Cream, Chive, Cheddar Cheese Bread