How long to cook lean borscht?
Lean borscht to cook for 3 hours, time in the kitchen – 1 hour. Borsch with dry beans takes longer to cook; it is better to soak the beans at least a day before boiling the borsch.
How to cook lean borscht with beans
Products
Beets – 1 large
Beans – 100 grams of dry beans or 300 grams of canned beans
Cabbage – 250 grams
Potatoes – 3 pieces
Carrots – 1 medium
Onions – 1 small head
Parsley – half a bunch
Bay leaf – 1 leaf
Vegetable oil – 4 tablespoons
Salt – 2 teaspoons
Pepper – 10 peas
How to cook lean borscht
1. Pour beans into a saucepan, soak in cold water overnight, drain, cover with fresh cold water.
2. Put a saucepan on the fire and cook for 1,5 hours until soft, then drain the water.
3. Peel the onions and chop finely.
4. Peel the carrots and grate on a coarse grater.
5. Peel and grate the beets.
6. Heat a frying pan over medium heat, pour 2 tablespoons of butter.
7. Put the chopped onion in a skillet, fry it for 7 minutes, stirring occasionally, over medium heat without a lid.
8. Add grated carrots to the onion and fry for another 10 minutes.
9. Pour 1,5 liters of water into a saucepan, put the pan on fire.
10. When the water boils, put the fried vegetables in a saucepan.
11. Reheat the frying pan, put the grated beets.
12. Simmer the beets for 10 minutes over low heat, covered, stirring regularly.
13. Put the stewed beets in a saucepan, continue to cook the soup.
14. Peel and cut the potatoes into 2-2,5 cm cubes, add to the soup and cook for 5 minutes.
15. Peel the cabbage from the top leaves, wash and chop finely, put in the soup.
16. Add salt, pepper, beans and bay leaves, cook for 5 minutes.
17. Remove the pot with borscht from the heat and leave the borscht for half an hour.
18. Wash the parsley, dry and chop finely.
Serve ready-made lean borscht, sprinkle with chopped parsley.
Delicious facts
– You can cook borsch without beans, replacing it with fresh mushrooms (150 grams, fry with vegetables and add with frying), and red bell pepper (1 piece, fry with vegetables and add to borsch with frying).
– To use dried mushrooms in lean borscht, you need to soak them in water for 2-3 hours – then, if necessary, cut them. To cook a 5-liter pot of borscht, you need 25 grams of dried mushrooms.
– To lean borscht, you can add 2 tablespoons of tomato paste and a little (half a teaspoon per 2,5-liter saucepan) sugar to your taste.
– Serve lean borsch with bread, herbs, garlic, pickles and pickles.
– To reduce the cooking time of lean borscht, you can add canned beans to the borscht.
– To make the borscht have a bright red color and acquire a special sourness, you can add a little vinegar of 9% to the borscht – for 2,5 liters of borscht 1 tablespoon at the stage of adding spices.
– Dried prunes are great in borscht – pour boiling water over it for 10 minutes, chop if desired, add to the soup along with cabbage. For 5 liters of borscht, 8-10 prunes are needed.
– To diversify lean borscht, on fish days, you can add sprat in tomato sauce to borscht – 2,5 can of 1 grams is needed for 200 liters of borscht. Add sprat at the frying stage – first fry with vegetables, and then.
– If on fasting days, food with frying in vegetable oil is prohibited, you can fry all the products in a teflon-coated pan until golden brown, or just chop all the vegetables and add them raw to the borscht one by one.
How to cook classic borscht
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