How and how much to cook beets for borscht? Recipes and little tricks

2024 Author: Isabella Gilson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:14

Borsch is a traditional vegetable soup. It has a characteristic red color, which is due to the presence of beets in this dish. Proper borscht is thick, cooked in a strong meat broth, bright red and fragrant. It is served as a first course, with sour cream, herbs, donuts with garlic and lard.

Every family has its own recipe for borscht. Some cooks add non-traditional ingredients to it, for example, mushrooms, prunes, chicken or even kefir instead of broth. However, for the soup to have every right to be called borscht, it must have a rich red color. Therefore, beets are an essential component of this dish.

How to cook beets for borscht? Each cook has his own tricks that help to cook this vegetable so that it does not lose its taste and color during heat treatment.

Borscht

How to cook classic borscht? Its obligatorycomponents are:

• Beef broth, strong and clear. It is cooked with bones and boiled for at least two hours.
• Potatoes cut into cubes.
• Cabbage, shredded. Borscht is made from both fresh and sauerkraut.
• Carrots. It can be cut into strips, cubes and even rings.
• Onion fried with vegetable oil.
• Spices - s alt, dill, bay pepper.
• Beets, roasted or boiled.

Also in borscht may be present: tomato paste, tomatoes, sugar, vinegar and other ingredients. Beef broth can be easily replaced with any other meat or chicken broth.

Theoretically, borscht is very easy to cook. First you need to make a good strong broth, then put vegetables and spices, if necessary, fry them first. But sometimes the result is a completely different dish - colorless or orange, with vegetables boiled to transparency.

The whole secret of a good borscht is in the correct laying of products. Everyone knows that beets need to be cooked for a long time. But if you throw it into boiling water earlier than necessary, then the pigment will disintegrate under the influence of high temperature. And in the end you get just cabbage soup, but not borscht.

Experienced cooks advise to cook the beets separately, and put them in 3-4 minutes before removing the pan from the heat. And to consolidate the result, I add 9% table vinegar to the borscht - a couple of tablespoons per five-liter pan.

How and how much to cook beets for borscht? This is an interesting question, since a singleopinion does not exist. Each chef chooses a convenient option for himself.

Boil or fry?

Beets for borscht can be pre-boiled or fried with vegetable oil. Both options have the right to life. The vegetable can be boiled whole or in pieces and even steamed. This process takes a considerable amount of time, although there are tricks to make it faster.

When frying or stewing, the beets are grated or chopped very finely. Then it becomes soft very quickly. But there is a risk of overcooking the vegetable, which will cause it to lose pigment, become dry and not so tasty.

So be careful when roasting.

Which beetroot to buy for borscht

Before deciding how and how much to cook beets for borscht separately from the rest of the ingredients, you need to buy the vegetable itself. Choosing the right root vegetable is quite simple, you just need to know what to look for:

1. Size. Beets of all varieties can be divided into two categories - for food and fodder and sugar varieties. For borscht, you need to choose those root crops that are intended for food. They are small, sweet, tasty, with a thin skin and a more uniform texture. Large beets are most often fodder, fibrous, with a less bright taste. In addition, when growing it, fertilizers and pesticides are used, which are not very useful for humans. Therefore, when buying, you need to take not too largeroot vegetables, from the group where all vegetables are about the same size.
2. Freshness. The ideal option is beets with green tops. Unfortunately, it can only be found during the season. The rest of the time you should pay attention to elasticity. Old root vegetables are more flabby and soft.
3. Sort. For borscht, the Bordeaux variety is well suited - rounded, flattened, with a thin skin.

How long do you need to cook beets for borscht? It depends on the cooking method. There are several of them, so let's look at each one.

Frying in a pan with vegetable oil

Root can be fried in a pan with vegetable oil. Previously, the vegetable is cleaned, grated and finely chopped. There are two main roasting methods:

1. With onions and carrots.
2. Separate.

In the first case, onion is first placed in a frying pan in heated oil, and after a couple of minutes, chopped carrots. And after another 5 minutes - beets. This order is due to the fact that if you put everything at once, the onion will be stewed, and not fried. The same will happen with carrots. After adding the beets, the frying is kept on fire for another 5-10 minutes. The time depends on the power of the stove and the desired result. At the end, you can add tomato paste. It already contains vinegar, so it will set the red pigment.

Sometimes cooks prefer to roast the beets separately. Since it is quite juicy, and when adding other components, the process is greatly delayed.

Stewing and sautéing

Beets for borscht can besimmer with a little water. First, you need to finely chop it, then simmer in a frying pan under the lid. Time costs will be slightly higher than when frying. However, this cooking method can be used when cooking lean borscht.

Sautéing is, in fact, the same frying in vegetable oil. But at a lower temperature. At the same time, vegetables should not be fried - when sautéed, they only soften.

Cooking

How long does it take to cook beets for borscht? The traditional cooking method takes 2-3 hours, depending on the size of the root crop. Vegetables need to be washed, cut off the tail and pour cold water. Then put on fire. After boiling, reduce the temperature and cook over low heat for 2-3 hours. Then remove and cover with cold water so that you can quickly remove the skin.

After that, the root crop is cut into cubes and sent to borscht a few minutes before it is ready.

There are other cooking options. For example, cooks often use ordinary vegetable oil to reduce time costs. How much to cook beets for borscht using accelerated technology? It only takes one hour if you put the root vegetable directly into boiling water and add a few tablespoons of vegetable oil to raise the temperature of the water.

Professional chefs know an even faster way to boil beets. The root crop is dipped in boiling water, poured over a little vegetable oil and set the maximum temperature on the stove. So the beets are boiled for about half an hour, then they are poured with cold water andleave for 10 minutes. Shock chilling brings the vegetable to readiness. However, after such extreme heating, a minimum of useful substances remain in the beets.

Baking in the oven and microwave

When a culinary specialist is concerned about how much to cook beets for borscht, this means that he has a shortage of time. This problem is easily solved by preparing the root crops in advance. In addition, beets can not be boiled, but baked.

In order to bake a root vegetable in the microwave, it is washed, wiped dry and pricked with a fork. Then the beets are sent to the oven for 10-15 minutes. After it needs to be wrapped in foil and left to reach room temperature.

In the oven, the root crop is baked for 15-20 minutes. Beets are pre-washed, wiped and wrapped with parchment. Then they are sent to the oven, heated to a temperature of 200 ⁰С.

Baked beets are drier and sweeter than boiled ones. It is ideal for making salads. But it can just as well be sent to borscht.

Cooking in a slow cooker

When cooking in a slow cooker, the root crop is cooked either in the "Soup" mode or steamed. How much to cook beets for borscht in a slow cooker? In the first case, the process will take one hour. To do this, the root crop must be washed, poured with cold water and sent to the kitchen unit.

The second option is faster. It will take 40-50 minutes. To do this, the root crops are washed, large ones are cut into 2-4 parts and placed cut-side up on a bowl with holes. Downyou need to pour 1.5-2 liters of water. Then you should set the "Steamer" mode and wait for the end of the process.

Recommendations

Now you know how much to cook beets for borscht. To make the dish as tasty as possible, you can use some more culinary tricks:

• Beets are always boiled in their skins to reduce pigment loss. And at the end, they pour cold water over so that the skin is well peeled off.
• The root crop is not s alted during cooking, otherwise it will be tougher, and the cooking time will increase.
• To preserve the rich red color, add a little table vinegar or lemon juice to the borscht. You can do the same when cooking beets separately.
• The readiness of the root is checked with a wooden toothpick. If the beets are cooked, they are easily pierced with minimal pressure.
• To neutralize the smell of beetroot, add a piece of bread to the water while boiling.
• Borscht needs to rest for at least 30 minutes before serving.
• Product can be stored up to 7 days in the refrigerator.

Bon appetit!