Beets-With-Greens Borscht

- Total Time
- 2 hours
- Rating
- Comments
- Read comments
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Ingredients
- 2pounds red beets with greens, beets peeled and cut into ½-inch dice, greens coarsely chopped
- 1pound meaty beef shin bones
- 1pound green cabbage, shredded
- 114-ounce can chopped tomatoes with their juice
- 1large onion, quartered and thinly sliced
- 1bay leaf
- Salt to taste
- 1pound large waxy potatoes, quartered
- Freshly ground white pepper to taste
- Balsamic vinegar to taste, for drizzling
Preparation
- Step 1
In a soup pot, combine beets (not greens), bones, cabbage, tomatoes, onion, 8 cups water, bay leaf and salt; bring to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low and simmer 1½ hours.
- Step 2
Meanwhile, put potatoes in a medium saucepan of water. Bring to a boil and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, transfer potatoes to a cutting board. Add chopped greens to boiling water and cook until tender, about 3 minutes. Drain and rinse in cold water. Peel potatoes and cut into ½-inch dice.
- Step 3
Discard bay leaf. Remove bones, remove meat from bones, chop meat and return meat to soup. Taste and add salt if needed. Ladle soup into bowls and season with white pepper. Top with potatoes and greens, and drizzle with balsamic vinegar.
Private Notes
Comments
This was delicious. We had leftover beef rib roast and one bone -- I cooked the bone in the pot, and added cut-up roast meat at the end. I used red cabbage on hand, as well as some kale in lieu of beet greens I didn't have. This would have been a wonderful meat dish for the Passover season.
Made it vegetarian using veggie stock. Very tasty. I'll make it again.
Delicious! And so easy. My market has frozen shin bones(with marrow but sans meat) so I put in a pound of beef spareribs (minus any large fat pockets). Worked great. Makes a lot..good for sharing.
No reason not to just cook the potatoes & beet greens in the soup towards the end of cooking—way overcomplicating things & reducing potential for more flavor to be infused into both ingredients!
Used 1# stew meat on hand, seasoned & browned it, then removed to add back later. Also raided fridge, yielding cauliflower, carrots to dice. Peeled, seeded, diced 3 large yellow & 1 red tomato. Beets, 3# cooked in pressure cooker then peeled, diced & added near end, winter tops not worth saving; subbed kale, used red cabbage. Used 2 quarts homemade vegetable-beef bone broth, added a third quart of water just to cover veggies (all from our somewhat exuberant garden this year). Added a sprinkle of whole caraway and a pinch of nutmeg because my Russian cousin did that. Isn’t that strange? Seemed to brighten then sweeten the pot and balance the earthiness of beets and potatoes.
Had it for dinner tonight. Just great. Added a few more bay leafs and some caraway seed.
