Borscht: the Soup That Makes Your Kitchen Look Like You Killed Someone

There is clearly a problem with food writers, particularly food bloggers, and their habit of lying maliciously about the recipes they post. A fine example is the crowd who post on allrecipes who, without shame, claim that a recipe wherein four out of five ingredients are dumped out of cans is actually tasty.

But more insidious are those who fabricate stories about the origins or history of their recipes or food. Sometimes this can be a simple mistake, sometimes poor research, or, as in the case of Moghrabieh, which I've heard referred to as "Israeli couscous," in spite of the fact that it has definitely been in the region far longer than Israel has, nationalist pish posh.

The reason I bring this up is that while researching how to make borscht, I came across a pretty excellent recipe (which I have long since lost) that claimed that it was the personal script of the Russian Romanov imperial family's cook. Although the recipe had a few very elegant elements missing from most other recipes, I'm tempted to call B.S. on this one for a few reasons.

1. Borscht was par excellence the food of the poor. Roots and vegetables were cheap and, for much of European history, seen as little better than peasant and pig fodder. Even the now venerable potato wasn't popular in Germany until the 18th century when it was encouraged as famine food, and only in the 19th century did it pick up some fans in France and elsewhere. The Romanovs were also known to harbor some real porkers, like Catherine the Great, who is apocryphally said to have died trying to acquaint herself in the biblical sense with a horse (also lies, probably spread by the British). What I'm trying to say is that the dynasty was known primarily for spending ridiculous sums on bedazzled Easter eggs and being riddled with bullets by a number of poor folk in an revolution that was started because they did things like spend ridiculous sums on the aforementioned Easter eggs - eating peasant food was probably out of the question for them.

2. The recipe listed was clearly a Russian style borscht recipe (distinct in several ingredients, notably using beef, beets, cabbage and potatoes) - many Romanovs were of German lineage and liked French food, as one can tell from other French inspired recipes like Muscovy Duck. I'm pretty sure they ate differently from their peasant "countrymen".

I'll have to keep an eye out on research proving the contrary, but until then, I'll just say this was a nice recipe.

Actually, borscht (root soup) is a pretty basic element in a lot of cuisines from Russia and Eastern Europe to Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan, all the way to China, where they use tomato paste instead of beets for the flavor (I use both!). This should come as no surprise since roots are cheap and easy to grow, aren't as easily harmed by inclement weather as wheat, and are less likely to be scooped up by invading armies trying to provision themselves since they are heavy and can be left underground, undiscovered, until the troops have passed. Also, since drinking water was often a problem in poorer areas of Europe and Asia, soups came into popularity as supplements to meals since it allowed people to get water without actually having to drink water (one might question whether they traced their bowel issues to the local watering hole, but this is getting long as it is, so we'll treat that some other time).

So Borscht. This is my own adaptation of the classic sweet soup that utilizes stuff I have handy, but it tastes wonderful and is cheap, so enjoy. You can do this with meat or without - it tastes fine either way. A warning: there is an assload of ingredients, but you just throw them into a pot pretty much, so deal with it.

Also, cutting up beets is a secret pleasure of mine. They look so pretty inside, and when you're done, it looks like you've been dismembering corpses on your cutting board, and probably your clothes from wiping your beet-blood soaked hands on them.

Ingredients
4 tbsp oil (olive is okay for this)
1 large onion, finely chopped
2 tomatoes, finely chopped
2 medium beets cubed
3 garlic cloves minced
1 carrot cubed
1 stalk celery finely minced
1 potato cubed
1 cup cabbage, shredded
2 tbsp minced green bell pepper
1/2 cup red wine (I used Khoury's cheap red table wine, which contains a lot of pinot noir)
5 cups water or broth (enough to fill over ingredients)
2 tsp dried dill
2 tsp safflower (not the same as saffron!)
2 tbsp tomato paste
squeeze of lemon juice
1-2 tbsp sugar
a lot of salt to balance the sugar
pepper

Steps:
1. Chop up everything appropriately and putting it all in one bowl since you add it all together, except the onion, which you add in first and should keep aside.

2. Heat the oil in a large stockpot on medium and dump in the onions, cooking them down until they start to get dark (this is the beginnings of caramelization, which will make them taste a bit sweeter).

3. At this point, dump in the rest of the vegetables and then the water/broth. You can add the tomatoes first and cook them, but don't bother, they'll dissolve away in the broth. Cover, increase the heat until it's at a boil. Then add the wine, sugar, spices and tomato paste - but not the salt. For those of you keeping Halal, a smaller amount of balsamic vinegar works nicely too without giving you the alcohol, which is pretty much negligible anyways.

4. Lower to a simmer and cover. After 10 minutes, return and taste it, adding salt to balance out the sweetness and squeeze some lemon juice over it.

5. Cover and let it cook for another 20 minutes until the beets and carrots are no longer hard chunks of raw root and have leaked out their delicious sweetness into the broth.

6. Turn off heat, add cracked pepper, and rest it for 15 minutes. When it's a bit cool, serve in a bowl with a spoon of lebneh or sour cream, which you then mix into the broth, turning what once looked like a bowl of blood into an obscene pink nightmare. It's tasty though.