This is an Eastern European comfort food recipe handed down on my mother’s side.
Ingredients:
1 decent onion/2 small ones
1 tbsp cooking fat/oil
2 big carrots/3-4 small ones
1-3 cloves of garlic (to taste)
1 beetroot
1-2 big potatos/3-4 small ones
Stock cube/teaspoon of powdered stock dissolved in a cup of hot water
1/2 cabbage
2tbsp salt (ideally slightly coarse)
2tbsp Lemon juice/1tbsp cider vinegar
750ml of hot water
1/2 can of chopped tomatoes/1 cup of tomato purée
A pinch of pepper
A bayleaf (optional)
Chopped herbs, oil of choice, sour cream, salt and pepper to serve.
Accompaniment: crusty or rye bread and beer, or kvass, if you can get your hands on some.
Equipment:
Chopping board
A good knife (you may need a large one for the cabbage)
A medium sized saucepan
Wooden cooking spoon
A mixing bowl (failing that, a small saucepan or large tupperware container will do)
A soup ladle
Serve the soup in a bowl and eat with a spoon. Alternatively, it can be packed away into a thermos flask and toted.
Time: 1.5 hours
Method:
1. Peel the onion, top and tail it, and dice it finely. Peel the carrots. Put the oil in the saucepan, and put that on the hob on a low heat. Add the diced onion.
2. Whilst the onion is frying, stir it intermittently, and dice the carrots finely (like the size of human teeth, or smaller). When the onions are light and translucent, add the carrots to the saucepan. Mix with the wooden spoon, and leave to sautée, still on a low heat.
3. Peel the potatoes (or don’t, if they are washed clean and you like the skin) and dice them finely. Add these to the sautéeing veg. Stir. If you feel you need to add a tablespoon more oil here, do. It can help prevent the veg from sticking to the pan.
4. Peel the beetroot, dice it finely, and add it to the saucepan. Wash your hands, if you don’t want to re-enact a certain play by Shakespeare. Stir.
5. Finely chop the garlic, and add it to the saucepan. Stir.
6. Put the kettle on. Dissolve the stock cube/powder in the hot water. Once it is fully dissolved, slowly add the stock to the veg, mixing all the while. Once you have added all of it, cover the saucepan, and leave the contents to simmer.
7. Now, cut out the heart of the cabbage. It’s a hard, white bit at the bottom, shaped like a triangle, that believe me you do NOT want to eat. I usually do this by making two slanted cuts either side of the triangle. Be sure to be careful doing this.
8. Chop the half of the cabbage in half, vertically (down the line of the removed heart). Now slice it horizontally into thin strips. Put these in the mixing bowl.
9. Add the salt to the mixing bowl. Scrunch the cabbage and salt until it produces juice and the pieces of cabbage are soft (you need to do this, or you will be contacting me to ask for compensation, saying your friends and family won’t speak to you, and your significant other has disappeared off the face of the earth, and whenever you go into a building, people are rushing to open the windows. To wit, cabbage isn’t easy to digest.)
10. Check that the boiling veg is al dente by tasting it, or squashing it gently – if it is squashable, you may proceed with step 11.
11. Add the cabbage by handfuls, careful to squeeze out the juice into the mixing bowl, to the saucepan. Wash your hands. Stir it into the rest of the veg
12. Add the hot water, slowly, stirring the soup whilst you do. Let it simmer for about 15 minutes.
13. Add the lemon juice or cider vinegar. Stir. Add the tomato. Stir, and cover. Leave to simmer for about 5-10 minutes.
14. Add the pepper and the bayleaf. Leave to simmer for 5 minutes.
15. Switch off the hob. Ladle the soup into bowls. Serve as desired, with or without sourcream and/or other seasonings.
16. Feel virtuous for having made and eaten a cheap and nutritious meal.
I need to add, this soup is better on the second day. If it is left cold overnight and then re-boiled the next day and served, you can really taste the difference. I am told, in Russia the second-day soup costs more than fresh soup in restaurants.
At Least Afloat 