Summer Borcht

[Dame]

I cook using the maxim that no Chinese Mother/Grandmother feeding many mouths 3 times a day fallowed the recipies in the N. American style Chinese Food Cookbooks.  There would simply not be either enough time or fuel.

We eat a borcht at least once a week because we like it, it is flexible, quick and extreamely easy.

With every meal for a couple of days, I add the vegetables and the vegetable water and small portions of chicken or red meat or chicken bones, today's version had one beef sausage sliced in rounds,to a soup pot and put in the fridge.  Avoid rice, corn, beans and dressed salades.  I add onion (any version) along with any small amount of cabage or cabage like vegetable I have handy or beats and boil for perhaps 20 minutes and then add vinegar and approximately a tablespoon of dill.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Serve with sour cream, cream, milk thickened with vinegar or lemon, if you need extra calories. 

The formal recipie calls for chicken stock made with equivalent to the bones and left over drippings, skin etc. of one chicken and the following flavorings:  Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 hours.
2Tbsp - vinegar
1 - small onion
1 - small bunch of parsley
3-6 anise seeds
4-6 whole cloves
3 whole all spice
4 inches cinnamon stick
6 whole black peppercorns

This also makes a good chicken stalk base for alfredo sauce and won ton soup.

[opsec]

Where's the beets?

[Atash Hagmahani]

Where's the beets?

I add onion (any version) along with any small amount of cabage or cabage like vegetable I have handy or beats

I'm trying to remember if Borscht (Bortz in some languages) always has beets. I'm not sure it does.

[opsec]

I thought that borscht was uniquely Russian and used beets.

[Dame]

Is my spelling making you nuts?  Join the club, I am the organizer.
Yes, Russian or Ukrainian Borscht(?) uses beets and I would be careful whether I called it Russian or Ukrainian depending who I am talking to, so I avoid the national/ethnic references and use the German term Winter Borscht for the beet version.  Depending who you talk to the recipe for this varies quite a bit.
Summer Borscht is German or Mennonite and is cabbage based; at least according the my collage roommate's Grandmother who was German Mennonite and did not speak English.  My roommate translated for both the formal request for the recipe and the recipe.

[opsec]

So "borscht" is kind of a generic term for a type of food, kind of like "sandwich".

[Lady Lilya]

I thought that borscht was uniquely Russian and used beets.

My Russian-style borsch goes like this:

throw meat or bones into water with some salt and boil a while
add potatoes and thinly sliced cabbage (unless you want to use sauerkraut instead)
when the potatoes are cooked, grate carrots and beets, and chop onion
fry the carrots and beets and onion a little in a frying pan to brown them slightly and give them a caramelized flavor
add them to the pot, along with a little tomato paste and some vinegar (leave out the vinegar if you chose to use sauerkraut instead)
(if you chose to use sauerkraut instead, now is when you add it.)
then you cook until everything is thoroughly red

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As I understand it, the common thing that is eaten in the Ukraine is called Green Borsch.  It has meat and potato and diced hardboiled egg and sorrel.

--

I spell it "borsch" because in Russian that is how it sounds.  No "T".  Russian has 2 sounds that we would transcribe in English as "sh".  They refer to one as hard and the other as soft.  "Borsch" has the hard one, so we generally transcribe that as "sch".

[opsec]

So it's "borsk" not "borsh".

[Lady Lilya]

No, there isn't a K sound.  Just a really strong SH that doesn't really exist in English.  Try saying SH with your tongue far back in your mouth.  We usually say it with our tongue near the front.  That would be their softer SH.

[Dame]

Sorrel such that I would like it, good addition to my recipe file.  So far the only thing I use sorrel for is taking the itch out of nettle stings.  I grow the nettle as an indiginous source of potassium.  If you try this wear gloves to handle it and then cook like spinach, it doesn't taste great but is palatable; and, is one of the few edible northern climate sources of potassium I know of.

p.s.  The vinegar added when the bones go in will leach the calcium out of the bones in larger quantity and make it easier to absorb once in the gi track.

[Atash Hagmahani]

Stinging nettle is just terribly common in my part of the world. I have never actually eaten it, but I am tempted to. The only thing I know to do with it is make nettle soup, but supposedly you can neutralize the sting chemically as well to produce nettle salad. I think I'd rather have it cooked, though.

[Atash Hagmahani]

I just tried some Sorrel from my garden. Tastes rather a lot like the little wild Oxalis--well fancy that, Oxalis is often called "Wood Sorrel". It contains the same acid--Oxalic acid. Unfortunately that binds up some of the mineral content.

A little more fibrous than I would like, but I think it will be more tender with some new growth. Plus it is usually cooked. A few young leaves in a salad would not be bad.

I am wondering how it will taste stir-fried, for my wife.

[opsec]

Is there any way to neutralize the oxalic acid in foods? I know boiling won't do it.

[Dame]

A stinging nettle soup recipie would be a wonderful boredom relief if the endless supply of banana's stops.