Borscht is a healthy, hearty soup made with beets, and known for its combination of sweet, sour and savoury flavours. It is a classic dish in Russia and Ukraine, as well as other countries such as Poland.
Thanks to your home canning, you have several shortcuts available to make this meal a quick win.
There are a million variations, so feel free to alter the ingredients in this recipe to suit the tastes of your crowd. There’s really just one essential: the beets!
[And, to be clear, this is not a canning recipe: this is a “cooking with canning” recipe. We know of no tested recipes for home-canning borscht.]
(To can for shelf stability, reheat the strained soup, ladle into pints or quarts, place lids and rings and pressure can at 11lbs. of pressure for 20 minutes.)
There was little doubt I would make the soup from the moment the memories flooded back. But my real intention was to can it. Pressure canning means this soup will be available whenever I wake up with thoughts of borscht.
The bones are cut into slabs, right through, and each piece includes three or four round bones. By slicing the meat and bones this way, the butcher reveals the meat, the marrow and the connective tissue that makes for a gorgeous velvety rich soup. Flanken is not a short rib, but if you aren’t blessed with a butcher, and can’t get true flanken, the short rib will do.
2 lbs. beets 3 quarts beef broth 1 -1/2 lbs. beef flanken 3 red onions, sliced into half moons 1 lb. carrots, peeled and sliced into discs 1″ thick 1 lb. (small) cabbage, shredded, but not too fine 1 lb. russet potatoes, peeled and chunked 2 cups red wine 10 stalks of thyme, 10 parsley stems, 2 bay leaves all tied together 2 Tablespoons kosher salt 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper 1/2 cup finely minced dill weed
Flanken is a key ingredient in the two beef soup recipes in that little box much as other cultures might use pork. But not Mary, a tradition-bound Jewish cook, even though it had been decades since she kept Kosher. For her, flanken provided a deep flavor and a sturdy base for bone-sticking soups. She would ask the butcher for some “flanken,” and although she rarely spoke Yiddish, when she said this word, there was a certain tone, something that told me she spoke this word in another language first. In her native Lithuanian. The soups had the same quality. They spoke another language; all tasted of tradition even though I hardly understood that at the time.
Borscht from home-canned beets
- Wash onion. Peel, dice, set aside.
- Wash potato, leave unpeeled, dice.
- Drain jar of beets, reserving the jar liquid, set jar liquid aside.
- Slice beets thinly, set aside
- Wash cabbage, slice, set aside.
- Heat oil in pot.
- Add onion, potato, sauté a few minutes until they just start to get translucent but dont brown them.
- Add cabbage, sauté a few more minutes.
- Add beets, reserved beet water, tomato, beef (along with the beef broth in jar.)
- Add seasonings from the vinegar down to the brown sugar (tip! you may wish to hold back on some of the vinegar and only add if you think the taste needs it at the end.)
- Let simmer 15 minutes or until potato pieces are soft.
- Stir in the milk.
- Add the dill and then season with salt and pepper to taste.
- If there is not enough liquid for your preference, add some water or broth.
- Heat through.
- Serve hot.
Instead of the home-canned ground beef, you could use 500 g / 1 lb of fresh ground beef (pork or poultry, or fresh veggie-ground round). Brown this in pot at the start along with the onion and potato. Or just omit the beef. Without the water in the jar of home-canned ground beef, you will need to add a cup or so of water as extra liquid to the soup to make up for the jar liquid.
Instead of the evaporated milk, you could use sour cream, Greek yoghurt or another type of plain yoghurt. Be careful not too boil too hard if you use a lower-fat sour cream or yoghurt, as it could curdle if boiled too hard.
Instead of the red wine vinegar, you could use any type of vinegar, or lemon juice. Adding something acidic wakes up the taste of the soup.
You can add more chopped cabbage if you wish.
You could add some already cooked beans, such as chickpeas, etc.
Modified for home canning from a recipe by Terri Gilson: Ukrainian shortcut borscht soup with beef: weight watchers friendly. (Accessed April 2020)
Per 1 cup / 250 ml serving: 208 calories
Nutrition calculated using My Fitness Pal
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Safely Canning Your Own Soup Recipes
FAQ
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