Borscht
Eastern European sour soup / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Borscht (English: /ˈbɔːrʃ, ˈbɔːrʃt/ ⓘ) is a sour soup, made with meat stock, vegetables and seasonings, common in Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. In English, the word "borscht" is most often associated with the soup's variant of Ukrainian origin, made with red beetroots as one of the main ingredients, which give the dish its distinctive red color. The same name, however, is also used for a wide selection of sour-tasting soups without beetroots, such as sorrel-based green borscht, rye-based white borscht, and cabbage borscht.
Alternative names | Borsch, borshch, borsht, bortsch |
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Type | Soup |
Place of origin | Ukraine[1][2] |
Associated cuisine | Ukrainian, Armenian, Ashkenazi Jewish, Azerbaijani, Belarusian, Chinese, Czech, Estonian, Georgian, Iranian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Mennonite, Moldovan, Polish, Romanian, Russian. |
Cooking time | 30 minutes to 3 hours |
Serving temperature | Hot or cold |
Main ingredients | Beet sour or beetroots |
Ingredients generally used | Tomatoes, vinegar, cabbage and/or potatoes, meat or salo |
Variations | Clear red borscht, cold borscht, unsoured borscht |
Similar dishes | Green borscht, white borscht as well as the ancient hogweed-made borscht |
Culture of Ukrainian borscht cooking | |
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Country | Ukraine |
Reference | 01852 |
Region | Europe and North America |
Inscription history | |
Inscription | 2022 (5th extraordinary session) |
List | Need of Urgent Safeguarding |
Borscht derives from an ancient soup originally cooked from pickled stems, leaves and umbels of common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium), an herbaceous plant growing in damp meadows, which lent the dish its Slavic name. With time, it evolved into a diverse array of tart soups, among which the Ukrainian beet-based red borscht has become the most popular. It is typically made by combining meat or bone stock with sautéed vegetables, which – as well as beetroots – usually include cabbage, carrots, onions, potatoes, and tomatoes. Depending on the recipe, borscht may include meat or fish, or be purely vegetarian; it may be served either hot or cold, and it may range from a hearty one-pot meal to a clear broth or a smooth drink. It is often served with smetana or sour cream, hard-boiled eggs or potatoes, but there exists an ample choice of more involved garnishes and side dishes, such as uszka or pampushky, that can be served with the soup.
Its popularity has spread throughout Eastern Europe and – by way of migration away from the Russian Empire – to other continents. In North America, borscht is often linked with either Jews or Mennonites, the groups who first brought it there from Europe. Several ethnic groups claim borscht, in its various local implementations, as their own national dish consumed as part of ritual meals within Eastern Orthodox[citation needed], Greek Catholic, Roman Catholic, and Jewish religious traditions.
The name ultimately derives from the word борщ (borshch or /borɕː/), which is common to East Slavic languages, such as Ukrainian and Russian.[3][4][5][6][7][8] Together with cognates in other Slavic languages,[lower-alpha 1] it comes from Proto-Slavic *bŭrščǐ 'hogweed' and ultimately from Proto-Indo-European *bhr̥stis 'point, stubble'.[9][10][11] Common hogweed (Heracleum sphondylium) was the soup's principal ingredient[12] before it was replaced with other vegetables, notably beetroot in the Ukrainian version.
Sometimes, borscht can be found as barszcz (a Polish word for borscht) or borshch (transliteration of Cyrillic "борщ"), although these are still foreign words in English and not natively used.
The English spelling borscht[13] comes from Yiddish באָרשט (borsht), as the dish was first popularized in North America by Yiddish-speaking Ashkenazi Jews from Eastern Europe.[14]
Traditional red beetroot borscht is typically made from meat or bone stock, sautéed vegetables, and beet sour (i.e., fermented beetroot juice). Depending on the recipe, some of these components may be omitted or substituted.
The stock is typically made by boiling meat, bones, or both. Beef, pork or a combination of both are most commonly used, with brisket, ribs, shank and chuck considered to give the most flavorful results, especially if cooked on a high flame. Marrow bones are considered best for the bone stock. Meat stock is usually cooked for about two hours, whereas bone stock takes four to six hours to prepare. Meat and bones are usually removed afterwards and the meat is only added back into the soup about 10–15 minutes before the borscht is done. Some recipes call for smoked meats, resulting in a distinctively smoky borscht, while others use poultry or mutton stock. Fasting varieties are typically made with fish stock to avoid the use of meat, while purely vegetarian recipes often substitute forest mushroom broth for the stock.[15]
The vegetables most commonly added to borscht are beetroots, white cabbage, carrots, parsley root, potatoes, onions and tomatoes. Some recipes may also call for beans, tart apples, turnip, swede, celeriac, zucchini or bell peppers.[16] Parsnip may be used as a substitute for parsley root, and tomato paste is often used as well as or instead of fresh tomatoes.[17] Vegetables are usually julienned, except for potatoes and zucchini, which are diced. The beetroots may be partially baked before being sprinkled with vinegar or lemon juice to preserve the color and braised separately from other vegetables.
Onions, carrots, parsley root, turnip and other root vegetables are sautéed (traditionally in animal fat, especially lard or butter) and then mixed with tomatoes or tomato paste. Dry beans are boiled separately. Potatoes and cabbage are boiled in the stock for about 15 minutes before the precooked vegetables are added.[18]
The traditional technique of preparing the soup is to precook the vegetables – by sautéing, braising, boiling or baking – separately from the meat and only then to combine them with the stock. This distinctive feature of borscht derives from the practice of slow cooking in the Russian oven (traditional masonry stove, used for both cooking and heating), wherein the differences in cooking times of individual ingredients had to be taken into account in order to ensure that all components reach doneness at the same time. The importance of this method is reflected in the Russian language, where a variant in which all vegetables are added raw directly into the stock is referred to by the diminutive form borshchok[lower-alpha 2] rather than borshch.[19]
The soup is typically flavored with a wide selection of herbs, spices and condiments. Salt, black pepper, garlic, bay leaves and dill are among the most commonly used. Other aromatics often added to borscht include allspice, celery stalks, parsley, marjoram, hot peppers, saffron, horseradish, ginger and prunes. Some recipes require flour or roux to further thicken the borscht. A common opinion is that a good borscht should be thick enough for a spoon to stand upright in it.[17][20]
Beet sour
The dominant tastes in borscht are sweet and sour. This combination is traditionally obtained by adding beet sour.[19] The sour is made by covering sliced beetroots with lukewarm preboiled water and allowing bacteria to ferment some of the sugars present in beetroots into dextran (which gives the liquid a slightly viscous consistency), mannitol, acetic acid and lactic acid.[21] Stale rye bread is often added to hasten the process, but usually omitted in Jewish recipes, as chametz (leavened bread) would make the sour unfit for Passover meals. Sugar, salt and lemon juice may also be added to balance the flavor. After about 2–5 days (or 2–3 weeks without the bread), the deep red, sweet and sour liquid may be strained and is ready to use. It is added to borscht shortly before the soup is done, as prolonged boiling would cause the tart flavor to dissipate.[17]
The beet sour is known in Slavic languages as kvas[lower-alpha 3] (literally 'sour, acid'; compare kvass) and in Yiddish as rosl[lower-alpha 4] (from a Slavic word originally referring to any brine obtained by steeping salted meat or vegetables in water; compare Russian rassol[lower-alpha 5] 'pickle juice', Polish rosół 'broth'). Apart from its employment in borscht, it may also be added to prepared horseradish or used as pot roast marinade.[22][23]
As the traditional method of making borscht with beet sour often requires planning at least several days ahead, many recipes for quicker borscht replace the beet sour with fresh beetroot juice, while the sour taste is imparted by other ingredients. Vinegar, tomato products, lemon juice or citric acid may be used, as well as dry red wine, dill pickle juice, murături juice, sauerkraut juice, tart apples, Mirabelle plums, apricots, or a fermented rye flour and water mixture.[18][24][25][26]
Ukrainian
As the home country of beetroot borscht,[27] Ukraine boasts great diversity of the soup's regional variants,[28][29] with virtually every oblast having its own recipe. Differences between particular varieties may regard the type of stock used (meat, bone, or both), the kind of meat (beef, pork, poultry, etc.), the choice of vegetables and the method of cutting and cooking them. For example, although the typical recipe calls for beef and pork, the Kyiv variant uses mutton or lamb as well as beef, while in the Poltava region, the stock for borscht is cooked on poultry meat, that is, chicken, duck or goose. The use of zucchini, beans and apples is characteristic of the Chernihiv borscht; in this variant, beetroots are sautéed in vegetable oil rather than lard, and the sour taste comes solely from tomatoes and tart apples. The Lviv borscht is based on bone stock and is served with chunks of Vienna sausages.[30][31]
Russian
Many regional recipes for borscht have also developed in Russian cuisine. Examples include the Moscow borscht, served with pieces of sausages, such as doktorskaya kolbasa (similar to Bologna sausage in consistency), smoked sausages or saucisses - sausages, similar to cervelats or Vienna sausages. It is possible, the association of sausage borscht with Moscow is tied to Anastas Mikoyan and Soviet industrial production of sausages.
Other unique Russian variants include a Siberian style borscht, characterized by meatballs; Pskov borscht with dried smelt from the local lakes; monastic Lenten borscht with marinated kelp instead of cabbage and the Russian Navy borscht (flotsky borshch[lower-alpha 6]), the defining characteristic of which is that the vegetables are cut into square or diamond-shaped chunks rather than julienned.[20][32] Some Russian cooks add mayonnaise in place of either sour cream or vinegar or both.[33][34]
Polish
As well as the thick borschts described above, Polish cuisine offers a ruby-colored beetroot bouillon known as barszcz czysty czerwony, or clear red borscht. It is made by combining strained meat-and-vegetable stock with wild mushroom broth and beet sour. In some versions, smoked meat may be used for the stock and the tartness may be obtained or enhanced by adding lemon juice, dill pickle brine, or dry red wine. It may be served either in a soup bowl or – especially at dinner parties – as a hot beverage in a twin-handled cup, with a croquette or a filled pastry on the side. Unlike other types of borscht, it is not whitened with sour cream.[35]
Barszcz wigilijny, or Christmas Eve borscht, is a variant of the clear borscht that is traditionally served during the Polish Christmas Eve supper. In this version, meat stock is either omitted or replaced with fish broth, usually made by boiling the heads cut off from fish used in other Christmas Eve dishes. The mushrooms used for cooking the mushroom broth are reserved for uszka (small filled dumplings), which are then served with the borscht.[36]
Jewish
Ashkenazi Jews living in Eastern Europe adopted beetroot borscht from their Slavic neighbors and adapted it to their taste and religious requirements. As combining meat with milk is proscribed by kosher dietary laws, Jews have developed two variants of the soup: meat (fleischik) and dairy (milchik). The meat variant is typically made from beef brisket (pork is never used[37]) and cabbage, while the dairy one is vegetarian, blended with sour cream or a mixture of milk and egg yolks. Both variants typically contain beetroots and onions, and are flavored with beet sour, vinegar or citric acid for tartness and beet sugar for sweetness. Galician Jews traditionally liked their borscht particularly sweet. Jewish borscht may be served either hot or cold, typically with a hot boiled potato on the side.[2] In prewar Eastern Europe it was traditionally put up to ferment around Purim so that it would be ready four weeks later for the Passover holiday.[38]
Cold borscht
In the summertime, cold borscht is a popular alternative to the aforementioned variants, which are normally served hot. It consists of beet sour or beet juice blended with sour cream, buttermilk, soured milk, kefir or yogurt. The mixture has a distinctive pink or magenta color.[27] It is served refrigerated, typically over finely chopped beetroot, cucumbers, radishes and green onion, together with halves of a hard-boiled egg and sprinkled with fresh dill. Chopped veal, ham, or crawfish tails may be added as well.[39][40][41]
This soup was known in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which comprised the territories of modern-day Belarus and Lithuania, and it is still part of the culinary traditions of these and neighboring nations. In Belarusian, it is known as Chaladnik and in Lithuanian as Šaltibarščiai.[41] The Soviet "Encyclopedia of Housekeeping" has an article on borscht including a "cold borscht" recipe as borshch kholodniiy.[42]
"Coated" dressed herring salad resembles cold borsht as well, despite not being a soup. The similarity includes a strong color from using beets, a similar choice of vegetables, and the decorative addition of boiled eggs.
Although borscht is mostly used to describe a beet-based soup, there are soups in some culinary traditions with the same or similar names, but with sometimes wide variations in ingredients and preparation methods. In such soups, beetroots are not used or merely optional. The principal common trait among such borschts is a tart flavor from sour-tasting ingredients.[19] According to A Gift to Young Housewives, a book from the 19th century, "borscht" may or may not include beets (depending from recipe to recipe in the book).[43] [44]
In Polish cuisine, white borscht (barszcz biały, also known as żur or żurek, 'sour soup'[lower-alpha 7]) is made from a fermented mixture of rye flour or oatmeal and water. It is typically flavored with garlic and marjoram, and served over eggs and boiled fresh sausage; the water in which the sausage was boiled is often used instead of meat stock.[46]
In the Carpathian Mountains of southern Poland, variants of borscht are also made in which the tart taste comes from dairy products, such as whey or buttermilk.[47] Although the deep red color of beetroot borscht may remind those unfamiliar with Polish cuisine of blood, the kind of borscht that does contain animal (usually poultry) blood mixed with vinegar is dark brownish-gray in color and aptly called "gray borscht" (barszcz szary), which is a regional name of the Polish blood soup better known as czernina.[48]
Green borscht (zeleny borshch[lower-alpha 8]), a light soup made from leaf vegetables, is an example common in Ukrainian and Russian cuisines. The naturally tart-tasting sorrel is most commonly used, but spinach, chard, nettle, garden orache and occasionally dandelion, goutweed or ramsons, may be added as well, especially after the spring season for sorrel has passed.[49][50][51][52] Like beetroot borscht, it is based on meat or vegetable broth and is typically served with boiled potatoes and hard-boiled eggs, sprinkled with dill.[17] There is also a variety of Ukrainian green borscht which includes both sorrel and beetroots.[53]
In Romanian and Moldovan cuisines, a mixture of wheat bran or cornmeal with water that has been left to ferment, similar to, but less cloudy than that used in Polish white borscht, is called borș.[54][55] It is used to impart a sour taste to a variety of tangy Romanian soups, known as either also borș or ciorbă. Variants include ciorbă de perișoare (with meatballs), ciorbă de burtă (with tripe), borș de pește (with fish) and borș de sfeclă roșie (with beetroots).[56][57]
The Armenian, Azerbaijani and Georgian version of borscht is a hot soup made with beef stock, green peppers and other vegetables, which may or may not include beetroots, and flavored with chopped red chili and fresh cilantro.[58][25] In ethnic Mennonite cuisine, borscht refers to a whole range of seasonal vegetable soups based on beef or chicken stock – from spring borscht made with spinach, sorrel and chard to summer borscht with cabbage, tomatoes, maize and squash to fall and winter borscht with cabbage, beets and potatoes.[59]
In Chinese cuisine, a soup known as Luosong tang,[lower-alpha 9] or "Russian soup", is based on red cabbage and tomatoes, and lacks beetroots altogether; also known as "Chinese borscht", it originated in Harbin, close to the Russian border in northeast China, and has spread as far as Hong Kong.[60] In Shanghai's Haipai cuisine, tomatoes are the main ingredient; beef and its broth, onions and cabbages are also added; while flour, rather than sour cream, is used for thickening.[61]
The diversity of borscht styles is matched by the wide choice of garnishes and side dishes with which various kinds of borscht may be served.
Most often, borscht is served with sour cream, the East European version of which, known as smetana, is runnier than its American counterpart.[62] The sour cream may be served in a separate pitcher for the diners to add the desired amount themselves or the borscht may come already "whitened",[lower-alpha 10] that is, blended with sour cream. Sometimes the cream is thickened with flour before being added to the soup.[63] Yogurt[17] and a mixture of milk and yolks[64][2] are possible substitutes.
Chopped herbs are often sprinkled on the surface of the soup; dill is most common, but parsley, chives or scallion are often added as well. Individual helpings may be spiced up with minced hot peppers or garlic.[63] Many kinds of borscht are served over halves or quarters of hard-boiled chicken or quail eggs.[65] Navy beans, broad beans or string beans are also a common addition.[63][66]
Meat, removed from the stock on which the borscht was based, may be cut into smaller chunks and either added back into the soup or served on the side with horseradish or mustard.[67] Bacon and sausages are also commonly used as borscht garnishes.[20] Borscht based on bone stock may be served Old Polish style, with marrow from the bones.[63]
Some kinds of the soup, such as Poltava borscht, may be served with halushky, or thick noodles of wheat or buckwheat flour.[68] Siberian borscht is eaten with boiled meatballs (frikadelki[lower-alpha 11]) of minced beef and onion.[20] In Poland and parts of western Ukraine, borscht is typically ladled over uszka, or bite-sized ear-shaped dumplings made from pasta dough wrapped around mushroom, buckwheat or meat filling. Mushroom-filled uszka are particularly associated with Polish Christmas Eve borscht.[69][70][20]
Borscht, like any other soup in East Slavic cuisines, is seldom eaten by itself, but rather accompanied by a side dish. At a minimum, spoonfuls of borscht are alternated with bites of a slice of bread. Buckwheat groats or boiled potatoes, often topped with pork cracklings, are other simple possibilities,[66] but a range of more involved sides exists as well.
In Ukraine, borscht is often accompanied with pampushky, or savory, puffy yeast-raised rolls glazed with oil and crushed garlic.[67][71][20] In Russian cuisine, borscht may be served with any of assorted side dishes based on tvorog, or the East European variant of farmer cheese, such as vatrushki, syrniki or krupeniki. Vatrushki are baked round cheese-filled tarts; syrniki are small pancakes wherein the cheese is mixed into the batter; and a krupenik is a casserole of buckwheat groats baked with cheese.[20]
Pirozhki, or baked dumplings with fillings as for uszka, are another common side for both thick and clear variants of borscht.[72] Polish clear borscht may be also served with a croquette or paszteciki. A typical Polish croquette (krokiet) is made by wrapping a crêpe (thin pancake) around a filling and coating it in breadcrumbs before refrying; paszteciki (literally, 'little pâtés') are variously shaped filled hand-held pastries of yeast-raised or flaky dough. An even more exquisite way to serve borscht is with a coulibiac, or a large loaf-shaped pie. Possible fillings for croquettes, paszteciki and coulibiacs include mushrooms, sauerkraut and minced meat.[73][74]