my amazing borscht

hey - I decided to share my secret borscht recipe. I figured it's evil to keep all my tasty recipes to my self. So this one you can have.

2 bunches of beets - make sure they are in reasonable condition
1 bunch dill
1 lemon or lemon juice (fresh is nicer but whatever)
1 brown onion
1 egg
sugar
salt
sour cream

ok. yu peel all the beets and halve. If they are enormous beets, they should be quartered or whatnot. However bigger beets are bland and should be avoided if poss.
put the beets in a suitable cooking vessel.
grate the onion. If you're a sissy, you can dice it. Put into the pot with the beets.

get about half the dill. form a bouquet garni with some string, or just put the dill in without cutting, so you can fish it out later with a fork. I do the latter because it's not hard to miss a big floating weed in your soup pot.

fill with water enough to cover the veggie mess you have created and then some.

boil this and then reduce to a simmer until the beets are tender. They should not fall apart. Don't kill the beets. Don't allow the fluid to reduce too much. If the beets become crowded they will sit on the bottom and burn.

when the beets are tender, remove from the fluid and allow to cool. This is an advantageous moment to goof off, eat warm beets, or admire your odd sock collection. You will need to grate the beets so you really do want to piss off and do something else for a while...

when it's all cooled down, grate some of the beets (you will have some beet left over for sandwiches and public sculpture construction). Also, beat an egg, and (if the fluid in the pot is still warm) add a very tiny amount slowly to the egg, constantly whisking. Add more and more till you have a mix that can be added back to the pot without curdling the egg. This gives the borscht it's texture. If you're a sissy I guess you could thicken with cornflower, but what would my grandmother say? If she was dead, she'd come down from her magic cloud and kick your ass. But she's not dead. So it will have to wait.

add the egg mix to the main fluid whilst stirring or whisking. add the grated beets back too. Turn on the heat again and bring to a light simmer. You should be safe if you combined the egg properly, but keep whisking for a while to make sure you don't curdle the mix. If you fucked up well yu will have eggy borscht. Not the end of the world, but not as nice either.

did you remember to take out the dill?? hehe chop up some fresh dill (fronds only, no stem allowed) and add this as well.


You have the basic mixture here and its a matter of balancing sweet, sour and salty - so add the lemon juice first. I usually start by squeezing half a lemon into the pot. The other half I stab myself in the eyes with, because I'm an animator and have a sick sense of humor. then add some sugar and salt. Be sparing at first. You can always add more but can hardly add less. Balance to taste.

serve with sour cream and cracked pepper. can be served hot or cold.

if you are on some kind of hippie detox diet you can serve with natural yoghurt instead of sour cream. If you are a vegan, substitute cornstarch for egg to thicken. There is a reasonable sour cream substitute on the market made of tofu and magical belly lint. Sometimes this is found in Kosher food sections of supermarket, or in vegan emporiums. There's not many vegan emporiums around, which is a shame, because I've always wanted to buy a six pack of vegans to decorate my rock garden.

hint:

on the side, here is something nice to do with the excess beets.

get some fresh goats curd. Not that shitty soft cheese shit in the stupidmarket. You go to a cheese shop and buy fresh goats curd. get some mint and some balsamic vinegar and other herbs you enjoy. chop finely and mix with grated beet. its like a sweet minty tart dip that goes well with fresh sourdough. Not that I can eat fresh sourdough. I fucking envy bread eaters.