Ukrainian borscht with pampushky

Ingredients

• Pork ribs700 g
• Beetroot — in matchsticks3
• Cabbage400 g
• Potatoes4
• Carrot1
• Onion1
• White beans — cooked150 g
• Tomato paste2 tbsp
• Aged salo80 g
• Garlic5 clove
• Dill and parsley6 sprig
• Vinegar1 tbsp
• Soured creamto taste
• Salt and pepperto taste

Salt and spices grow more slowly than the rest: doubling a dish does not double the pepper.

Weight converts to ounces and volume to cups. Grams of flour are not turned into cups, because that depends on how tightly it is packed.

Method

1. 1

   Make a stock from the ribs: an hour and a half at a bare simmer, skimmed. Lift the meat out and pull it apart.

   95 min

2. 2

   Braise the beetroot separately with a spoon of oil, the tomato paste and the vinegar, covered, for twenty minutes. The vinegar is what holds the colour.

   20 min

3. 3

   Fry the onion and carrot until soft. Put the potatoes into the stock and give them ten minutes, before any acid reaches the pot.

   14 min

4. 4

   Add the cabbage, then after five minutes the beetroot, the fried vegetables and the beans. Give it five minutes.

   10 min

5. 5

   Pound the salo with the garlic and herbs to a paste and stir it into the pot. Take it straight off the heat and let it stand covered for twenty minutes.

   25 min

About the dish

Ukrainian borscht is distinguished by zatolochka — aged salo pounded in a mortar with garlic and herbs and stirred in at the very end. It never fully dissolves, and it gives the fatty garlic layer the soup is eaten for.

The salo has to be old and slightly yellowed. Fresh fat lacks the sharp smell that turns into depth in the finished soup.

Pampushky are not a side but part of the dish. They are dipped in garlic dressing and eaten with the soup, the way bread and olive oil work together around the Mediterranean.

Worth knowing

• — Never boil the beetroot in the pot itself: in an alkaline broth it browns within ten minutes and the colour never comes back.
• — The beans go in already cooked. Raw ones will not catch up, and boiling the soup longer means boiling the cabbage to pieces.
• — A proper borscht is eaten on the second day. In that case the zatolochka is stirred in while reheating rather than the night before.

Nutrition

Per serving at the base yield, calculated from the ingredients rather than measured in a lab.

Calories

480 kcal

Protein

26 g

Fat

28 g

Carbs

32 g

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