Borscht

Made this soup for lunch today.  An Autumnal favourite. See here with Fatma’s Eggs and home made sourdough.

This soup is much nicer if you use organic beetroots and cook them yourself which, if they are very fresh and young should only take about 25 minutes. If you do that, use the water from the pan you cooked them in as it will add to the flavour and it seems a terrible waste not to.

Ingredients:

3 large beetroots, cooked and peeled

1 red onion

1 clove garlic

Olive or other vegetable oil

2 vegetable stick cubes

1 pear (optional)

yoghurt (option and not for vegans)

Few sprigs of fennel or dill seeds or leaves

Cooking Method:

Fry the onions for a few minutes before adding the garlic for another minute or so.

As that is happening, grate the beetroots and then add those to the pan with the water you cooked the beetroots in or about 1.5 litres of fresh water. Once the water is hot, use about a glass of it to dissolve the stock cubes and pour that back into the soup with the herbs, leaving a small amount for decoration if you will serve the soup with yoghurt. There is no point otherwise as you won’t see the herbs over the lovely dark coloured soup.

Heat for another few minutes and serve with some warm bread and a salad or, as here, some eggs.