New Year's Borscht

In our house, new year would not be new year without soup. It brings us luck.  We are going away tomorrow so have decided to bring our good luck a day early. This is a New York recipe so the measures are American. I haven’t translated them as I think you can be fairly flexible with soup.

2lb beef shin, on the bone

6 cups water

1 onion, peeled and halved

2 carrots

3 beetroots

6tbsp tomato puree

4 garlic cloves, crushed

½ lb red cabbage, shredded

2 medium tomatoes, roughly cut up

1 bay leaf

2tbsp red wine vinegar

3tbsp sugar

1lb waxy potatoes

2tsp flaky salt

1/3 cup chopped dill

Freshly ground black pepper

Garnish

Sour Cream – at least a tablespoon each

Chopped dill

This takes all afternoon but it’s worth it.

Put the potatoes on to boil. When just cooked, but still firm, set them aside. The boy can dice them when they are cool.

Cut one carrot into quarters and get the boy to grate the other one. Put Mozart’s Prague Symphonies on the CD player. Put the quartered carrot, the halved onion and the beef in a large pot. The beef can go in whole. Bring to the boil and skim off all the fat or scum that comes to the surface. Lower the heat to a bare simmer and give it 1 and a half hours. You will run out of Mozart. The boy has chosen to move on to what might or might not be The Killers.

Strain it through a sieve and when it’s cool enough, fish out the beef (still whole). Put the stock back in the pan, with the saved beef and the beetroot. The boy has scrubbed off all the dirt first. Bring it back up to the boil and simmer for another 30 minutes.

There is a lot of stop start with this recipe. Luckily The Killers CD has finished. Bach’s Art of Fugue now.

Once it is cool rub the beetroot skin off with your fingers and grate it coarsely. Put the grated beetroot back in the soup.

Dissolve the tomato paste in ½  a cup of water – this is pretty much a tube full so use the best brand you can find – I prefer Cirio. Stir this in. Add the grated carrot, garlic, bay leaf and cabbage. I’m giving the cabbage an extra chop as the boy has done it very coarsely. Add the tomatoes, sugar and vinegar and simmer for another hour and a half. I appreciate this is almost 4 hours plus all the chopping time, but it will be worth it.

Remove the beef and strip the meat from the bones. Slice or shred it – it will be so soft it will be a combination of both. The boy’s little black cat is asking prettily so he gets a scrap or two.

Add the cooked potato and beef back to the soup, along with the dill and salt & pepper and warm it through. At least 3 minutes as this is a lot of dill. Get the boy to check the seasoning. It’s winter so he wants more of both.

Ladle into bowls and serve with a big spoonful of sour cream and chopped dill.

I would serve with a light salad but the boy points out that it has enough veg in it already.