Big Borscht
From pieplate 16 years ago
- 180 minutes to make
- Serves 14
Very much a one-pot meal. Most of it can be prepared in advance. I have served this at New Year's Eve parties to considerable acclaim.
Ingredients
- First, you make a pot roast, as follows: shopping list
- 3-4 pound chuck roast, with bone in if possible shopping list
- 1 large onion, chopped (white, red, yellow—doesn’t matter) shopping list
- 2 T peanut oil shopping list
- ¼ c red wine vinegar shopping list
- a large deep skillet with a cover, like a Dutch oven shopping list
- 6 whole fresh beets, tops removed shopping list
- a large pot, capacity at least 15 quarts shopping list
- 2 28-ounce cans whole tomatoes shopping list
- 4 carrots, peeled and chopped very coarsely shopping list
- 2 c thinly sliced celery, including leaves shopping list
- 1 medium can sliced beets shopping list
- another onion, and 2 T butter shopping list
- 1 bay leaf shopping list
- 1 T caraway seeds, 1 large pinch celery seeds (if you are cooking for shopping list
- folks with diverticulosis, wrap these in cheese-cloth shopping list
- 4 sprigs parsley shopping list
- 4-6 cloves of garlic, unpeeled. shopping list
- 1 head cabbage, sliced very thinly. I prefer savoy cabbage, for its less sulphurous flavor. shopping list
- Serve with generous dollops of sour cream, and seeded rye bread and butter, or dark whole-grain Euro bread and butter. shopping list
How to make it
- Prepare the pot roast by browning it well in 2T peanut oil in a dutch oven. Set aside. To the uncleaned pot, add the chopped onion and saute quickly, 2 minutes tops, but not until they are translucent. Deglaze this with the red wine vinegar. Salt and settle the pot roast among the onions, and roast covered at 275°, or until quite tender, perhaps 120 minutes. Either separate off the fat, or let it chill overnight and remove the hardened fat.
- Wrap the fresh beets in foil and bake at 325° for 2-3 hours or until soft. (If you wish, you may start this process when you bake the pot roast at its lower temperature, then continue baking the beets until they are soft.)
- Place in the large pot the tomatoes (seeded if you are cooking for folks with diverticulosis), which you have crushed with your bare hands! but not their liquid, the carrots, the celery, the bay leaf, seeds, parsley and garlic, and the broth from the canned beets. Add the broth from the pot roast and about 2 cups water, and perhaps ½ t salt if you have used unsalted canned vegetables.
- Simmer these for about an hour, until the carrots are tender. In the meantime, sauté the onions in the butter until soft, and add these to the pot. Find the bay leaf and the now-disgusting parsley sprigs and fish them out. Add the canned beets, sliced into strips (but don’t get them this way to begin with!) and simmer for another 30 minutes.
- At this point, taste the broth. Salt it and add some additional red wine vinegar if you wish.
- Peel the baked beets, slice them and quarter them, and add them to the pot. Add also the sliced pot roast. Place on top of it all the slivered cabbage. Simmer these an additional 30 minutes, then stir in the cabbage and simmer another 10 minutes.
People Who Like This Dish 5
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