More Than Just A Pot Of Soup

Those humble looking ingredients (cabbage, potatoes, carrots, celery, onions, tomatoes, peas, dill) may not seem that exciting, but they make one great pot of soup. But it’s alot more than that. This is a soup that my grandpa made all the time, and would send us home with mayonnaise jars full, or that I would eat while my sister and I were being babysat. I loved this soup – I would eat it straight out of the jar, not even bothering to heat it up. I always wished my mom knew how to make it, but since this is from my dad’s side of the family, it wasn’t in her repetoire. As an adult, I finally spent an afternoon with my grandpa learning to make the soup. What kind of soup, you may ask?

Borscht! “Where are the beets?”, I’m sure you are asking. My dad’s side of the family came from the Doukhobors in Russia. If you aren’t familiar with the Doukhobors, Wikipedia has an excellent article on their history here. Although my family was never very involved in the religious aspect of it, we definitely ate alot of the food. That’s one of the things that made going to my grandparents’ place special – we might get to eat perogies or borscht or these Russian fruit pies. We were also put to work making alot of those pies and perogies. But never the borscht. Which was why I finally had to ask my grandpa to show me how it was made. He had no recipe written down, so I just had to watch and document it as best I could so I could reproduce it later.

The ingredient list is short, but there are a few steps involved. I’m not 100% sure what the cooking process does to affect the flavour, but who am I to mess with tradition? Well, okay, I did…my grandpa originally used about 1/2 lb of butter, which really, was a bit excessive. So I’ve lightened it up in that respect, and it still tastes like it should. I must note – grandpa said you absolutely CANNOT substitute oil or margarine. Who am I to argue? Also keep in mind, it’s simply a vegetable soup, so if you have some other veggies hanging around, feel free to throw them in (grandpa was an experimenter himself – one time he made cherry filled perogies…not the best).

Grandpa’s Doukhobor Borscht
Makes….alot. Let’s say 12 servings.

6 cups water

3 large potatoes

3 stalks celery

3 carrots

1 cup green peas or green beans

28 oz canned diced tomatoes

2 large onions

1 small head cabbage

6 tbsp butter, divided

1/3 – 1/2 cup fresh dill

salt & pepper to taste

heavy cream, for serving (optional)

1. Peel and chop the potatoes. Cover with the water in a large soup pot/dutch oven. Boil until just tender & mashable.

2. While the potatoes are boiling, prep the other vegetables – peel & chop the carrots, chop the celery, slice the cabbage into thin strips & cut into smaller pieces, and dice the onions.

3. Once the potatoes are cooked, remove from pot with slotted spoon (do not discard the water!). Mash together with 2 tbsp butter and 1/3 of the canned tomatoes.

4. Turn the heat on the pot up to medium-high. Add the carrots, celery, peas, half the onions, half the cabbage, half the potato mixture, and half of the remaining tomatoes to the pot.

5. Heat a skillet over medium heat. Melt 2 tbsp of butter, then add the onions. Cook for approximately 5 minutes until translucent (you don’t want to brown them). Add the other half of the potato mixture and tomatoes. Cook another 5 min, then add to the pot.

6. Heat the remaining 2 tbsp of butter in the skillet, and add the remaining half of the cabbage. Cook until soft, but do not brown, approximately 10 min. Add to the pot (which should have been simmering away this whole time!).

7. Add fresh dill to the soup, season with salt & pepper to taste. Allow to simmer for 5 more minutes. Laddle into bowls, and drizzle with a bit of heavy cream if using. Garnish with more dill if desired.

The dill is really what makes the soup – be liberal with it! I probably added more than 1/2 cup, but I’m a dill fiend. This is actually the first time I’ve made the soup myself. I last had it with my grandpa almost 7 years ago. He passed away almost 5 years ago, so hopefully he’s somewhere looking down and approves of my borscht making skills (even if it’s missing more than half the butter!) 🙂

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So, obviously I had borscht for dinner. I also baked bread – Zesty’s Bubbly Beer Bread! I used a giant bottle of Fat Cat Brewery Pompous Pompadour Porter (say that 5 times fast), which was almost enough for 2 loaves – I just made up the extra liquid with a bit of milk.

I snacked on a piece while I was making the soup.

I had another piece with my soup.

Love that soup. It reminds me of my childhood and my grandpa.

It was such an awesome dinner. And I have a ton of soup and bread I can freeze for those times when I was to get a little nostalgic and revisit my roots via food.

I also had a snack featuring the yogurt I bought today – Liberte Coconut Yogurt.

I added 3 sliced strawberries, 1/2 of a mango, diced, and 2 spoonfuls of Coconut Macadamia Granola.

I. Love. This. Yogurt. It’s the perfect yogurt for a dessert type snack. I could probably sit down and polish off the whole container, but then I would be sad that it was all gone. This is going into regular rotation. And even though that mango is pale looking, it had great flavour.

Wow…that was one long post. I hope you made it through. I need to hit the sack ASAP. Night!