Borsch is one of the most popular first courses. It is cooked in the North and South, it is loved in the East and West, it is cooked in a variety of ways, but the result is not always happy. Sometimes only a name remains from borsch. Instead of a rich and bright soup, something else turns out that does not coincide with the expectation. What are the most common mistakes made?
Beets need to be cooked correctly!
Beets - an integral ingredient of borsch, it is known to all housewives. But few people know how to cook it correctly. As a result, instead of a bright ruby dish, we get something of an incomprehensible orange or brown color. Impressions of such a soup, like taste, are clearly far from ideal.
Beetroot cooking errors:
- Cooking in broth. Very often, the root crop is thrown directly into the pan. Sometimes whole, just peeling. And beets are cooked along with meat, gives taste, gives a brown color. You can’t do this.
- Lack of acid. In addition to stewing or boiling beets separately, it is important to add acid to it. It can be lemon juice, vinegar, diluted lemon. These ingredients, even in small quantities, will retain the ruby color, will not allow it to go into a brown shade.
- Bookmark the beets before vegetable frying. Another common mistake. It is necessary to lay the cooked beets in an acidic environment, that is, after vegetables fried with tomato. This will keep a beautiful color.
- The number of beets. If you add a slice or one small root crop, then it will be cabbage soup with beets. There are a lot of beets in the borsch, usually it is added 1: 1 to the potatoes.
Beetroot for borscht can be cooked whole and in a peel, but this is done separately, in no case in a common broth. After this, the root crop is peeled, the vegetable is cut and lightly fried, or simply poured into a pan.
Tasteless broth
The second most popular mistake is a bad stock. The taste of beetroot soup with beetroot will depend on the basis. Therefore, it is important to carefully prepare the broth. You can use beef or pork, in extreme cases, take chicken.
Mistakes for making the broth:
- Little meat. For borscht you need a rich broth. It is prepared not just from seeds, but pieces with pulp and even fat, fat.
- Spice. To cook the broth you need to use spices: laurel, peas, peppers, roots. They are not added to the finished borsch.
- The broth needs to be filtered. Even if the foam was thoroughly removed, the broth should be passed through a sieve or gauze, and the pan should be washed. Since there is a lot of meat, the resulting foam and fibers settle to the bottom, stick to the walls.
- The meat needs to be returned. You can cut the pulp and serve separately, but the pieces will dry out, they will have a different taste. It is more reasonable to return them to the pan, to let the borscht soak.
Of course, there are recipes and lean borscht. They just use water for it, mushroom broth, beans are often added for satiety. But all these improvisations do not belong to the original recipe, they are just a culinary parody.
Potato and other vegetables in borsch
Borsch is cooked with potatoes, but it is no more than beets. Usually one or two tubers are cooked whole, then mashed and added to the broth. The remaining tubers are chopped and poured a little later, as in a regular soup.
Errors bookmark vegetables:
- Cabbage to the potato. Usually it cooks faster, so you need to lay it a bit later. Otherwise, the cabbage will fall apart. If the vegetable is fresh and summer, then it is added at the very end, when the potatoes are almost ready.
- Sour cabbage from a can. If the soup is cooked with sour cabbage, then it must first be brought to softness in a pan or in a saucepan. Usually, cabbage is fried and then stewed, this is not a quick process.
- Bookmark everything at once. This is usually done in a slow cooker; this option is not suitable for a pan. Vegetables are thrown in a certain sequence at intervals, each time the borscht needs to boil.
Frying vegetables is not the most useful procedure, but during the preparation of borscht without it in any way. Moreover, it is important to passer correctly. You can not fry onions with carrots and even more so bring to a brown color, otherwise the dish will have an unpleasant taste. Just let them lightly brown or reach transparency, after which the remaining ingredients are introduced and the vegetables are stewed together.
What are they forgetting about?
- Fat. It is used not only for serving, but also added to the pan at the end of cooking. Usually, grated smoked or salted lard with garlic, sometimes with pepper and herbs, is used for this. The same mixture is put on the table, spread on bread.
- Pampushki. Without them, Ukrainian borsch is not served. If there is no desire to make dough and pastries, then you can serve homemade garlic croutons, they cook very quickly.
- Sour cream. In no case mayonnaise. There are enough fats and high-calorie ingredients in borsch, but a spoonful of sour cream will not hurt.
- Spice. Borsch is a multi-component dish with a pronounced taste. But sometimes it is not enough. In addition to salt, it is customary to add granulated sugar, citric acid or juice.
Error correction
If the borsch is overcrowded.
You can pour in a little raw water, but it’s best not to. Excess liquid will ruin the consistency, take away the taste. It is better to put a couple of potatoes and boil a little. Sometimes a bag of washed rice is lowered into the borscht, which also perfectly picks up salt. But the best and easiest option is to add unsalted tomato juice, mashed potatoes or a couple of grated tomatoes.
The cabbage is crunching.
It happens that the sauté was added too early, the cabbage did not reach readiness, it crunches. In this case, you need to reduce the fire and darken the borsch on a minimum fire, preventing it from boiling. Cabbage will certainly reach readiness, and the rest of the vegetables will not slacken, the slices will retain their shape.
Borsch turned liquid.
You can just pour a little broth, but it's better to add something. For example, fry another onion and carrot or introduce separately cooked potatoes. A great and quick solution is canned beans from a jar or pickled mushrooms. But in any case, the dish with the new additive must be brought to a boil.
If the soup is sour.
It happens that there is too much acid. In this case, sugar is added to the borsch or boiled fresh vegetables are introduced, they are prepared separately.
