Summer borshch

This cooking book from Jane Grigson i bought ten, fifteen years ago. Maybe even longer. I enjoy all the vegetables which are named in there. Also wild vegetables: dandelion leaves, nettle, cardoon. With each vegetables there are several recipes. This Sunday my eye fell on the summer borsch. It just so happened i had most of the ingredients in house. From the garden beetroot, courgettes and carrots. From the market spring onions and tomatoes. I only bought sour cream and dill in the supermarket yesterday.

A couple of changes, i didn’t use the beetroot stock. My end result is a bit more warm red. Still lovely. I did use three cloves of garlic and two vegetable stock cubes. Not a bouquet garni, but yes, some dill. And no celery, sorry to say. I did use the leaves from the beetroot. I picked two more beetroots today and the leaves looked fine.

Ingredients

1/2 kg beetroot, uncooked
1 large carrot, or several smaller ones
1 1/2 litres of water
2 tomatoes, chopped
spring onions, one bush, chopped
potatoes, diced
a small sliced courgette
3 cloves of garlic, sliced
2 cubes of vegetable stock
salt, pepper, 4 cloves
sour cream
dill

Preparation

a two minute cooking time of the leaves and the stalks of the beetroot, drain after and keep until a bit later on
use a mandoline to grate the beetroot in matchsticks like size
put the water in a large pan with a teaspoon of salt and warm up, add the beetroot
grate the carrots and add these to the water too, let this simmer for around 20 minutes
when the water cooks, prepare the other vegetables: chop the tomatoes, the spring onions and the courgettes
dice the potatoes and slice the dill
add all the vegetables, the two stock cubes, the sliced garlic, the dill, salt, pepper and the 4 cloves
let this simmer for around half an hour
add a bit of the sour cream and extra dill on top to the bowl just before serving

The soup tastes good. To me, i do think it needs the savoriness of the stock cubes and the garlic. I do enjoy it with the sour cream and the dill. Creme fraiche will work too.

A great soup for the summer!