Christmas Eve Borshch

Ingredients:

  • 6 carrots, peel and cut into small strips or grate
  • 1 cup celery, use both greens and stalks, chop fine
  • 8 beets, peel and cut into small strips or grate
  • 1 cup of green cabbage, shredded
  • 2 onions, peel and chop fine
  • Fresh baby dill, chop fine
  • 1 Tbsp. lemon juice
  • 2 bay leaves
  • 6 cups of water
  • 2 cups tomato juice or tomato sauce
  • 2 Tbsp. corn starch
  • 1 – 2 Tbsp. oil
  • salt & pepper to taste

Grate the carrots, beets, celery and cabbage on a medium size grater.  Do this by hand or use the shredding attachment on your food processor as this reduces the chopping time tremendously.

Dice the onion, and together with the shredded cabbage, fry in a bit of oil until the onions are soft and light in colour.

Add the beets to the water and bring to a boil.  Simmer on low for 30-45 minutes. To keep the colour in your beets, add a tablespoon of lemon juice.

Add the rest of the vegetables and once again, bring all to a boil.  Turn down your heat to simmer.  Add 2 or 3 tablespoons of the fresh chopped dill.

Add the tomato juice or tomato sauce.  I have also used undiluted tomato soup at times.

Dissolve the corn starch in 1/4 cup of water and add this to the simmering borshch. It’ll thicken the soup.

Taste and adjust with salt & pepper.  I leave out the salt as the tomato juice or sauce contains a fair amount.