Young beet tops are considered an essential component of many original Russian dishes. Our great-grandmothers used it along with nettles and other herbs. In today's publication, several interesting recipes of borsch with beet tops are collected.
Valuable Tips
Before using the tops, it is released from the stems. The leaves themselves are sorted out, throwing out spoiled specimens, soaked in cold water, washed thoroughly and only then crushed and loaded into a pan.
If you plan to cook borscht for several days, then you need to season it with garlic in portions. If you throw it immediately into the pan, then during storage it will lose its pronounced aroma.
If you cook beetroot soup with beetroot and young cabbage in a modern ceramic-metal bowl, then turn off the fire a few minutes earlier than usual. Otherwise, the vegetables may be digested and become too soft.
As for the filing, it is recommended to use such borsch with sour cream, fresh herbs and soft rye bread or garlic donuts made from wheat flour.
Lean option
This dietary vegetable beetroot soup from young beets with tops is perfect for vegetarian and children's menus. It contains a lot of valuable vitamins and minerals, so it turns out not only tasty, but also surprisingly useful. To weld it, you will need:
- 4 small beets with tops.
- Medium carrot.
- 3 potatoes.
- Medium onion.
- Dill, parsley, bay leaf and salt.
Practical part
Washed potatoes and finely chopped beets are carefully loaded into a pot of boiling water. After eight minutes, soaked and chopped tops are added there. Almost immediately, in boiling vegetable broth lay the onion with carrots and boil it all over low heat until cooked.
Five minutes before the completion of the process, salt, bay leaves and aromatic herbs are added to the pot with beetroot borsch. They serve it both hot and cold, after seasoning with sour cream and fresh herbs.
Sweet Pepper Recipe
This dish is cooked in chicken broth with the addition of a large number of vegetables. Therefore, it may well qualify for the title of diet. To cook light and fragrant borsch with beet tops, you will need the following products:
- A pound of chicken.
- 400 grams of beet tops.
- Large potato.
- 300 grams of white cabbage.
- Large onion.
- Medium carrot.
- Ripe tomato.
- Sweet bell pepper.
- 6 cloves of garlic.
- ½ hot pepper pod.
- Bay leaf, salt and vegetable oil.
Where to begin? Before you cook the borsch with beet tops, you need to cook the broth. To do this, the washed chicken is poured with cold water, sent to the stove and boiled over minimal heat. Ready meat is removed from the pan, and washed and chopped tops are loaded in its place. Potato wedges, shredded cabbage and salt are sent there almost immediately. All this is cooked on the smallest fire for several minutes.
Shortly before the completion of the heat treatment, a dressing is added to the pan with future borsch, consisting of sautéed onions, carrots, tomatoes, bell peppers and hot peppers. A couple of minutes before cooking, put bay leaf and garlic in a saucepan. The finished dish is insisted under the lid for a quarter of an hour, poured into portioned plates and seasoned with sour cream.
Canned Bean Option
We present to your court another interesting recipe for light borsch from young beets with tops. It is slightly different from previous options. So before you go to the stove, see if you have:
- Chicken breast.
- A bunch of sorrel.
- 4 young beets with tops.
- 6 potatoes.
- A teaspoon of sugar.
- A can of canned beans.
- Salt, basil and dill.
In a pan filled with three liters of boiling water, gently place the washed chicken breast and boil until tender. Then it is removed from the broth, freed from bones, cut into pieces and returned back. Fried chopped beets and potato cubes are added there. After 6 minutes, chopped sorrel, chopped tops, fresh basil and canned beans, with which all the juice was previously drained, are placed in the seething broth. All this is brought to readiness, insisted under the lid and served with sour cream.
Green pea soup
The following recipe for beetroot soup with beet tops is unique in that it involves the use of not quite standard ingredients. All of them perfectly complement and emphasize the taste of each other. To feed your household with an unusual dinner, you need to take:
- 700 grams of beef.
- 2 young beets with tops.
- 1/3 fork of white cabbage.
- 5 medium potatoes.
- Medium carrot.
- A glass of peeled green peas.
- 3 tomatoes.
- ½ teaspoon of sugar.
- A pair of onions.
- 3 cloves of garlic.
- On a large spoon of 9% vinegar and tomato paste.
- Salt, bay leaf, vegetable oil, spices and herbs.
Action algorithm
You need to start cooking borsch with beet tops from cooking the broth. To do this, washed beef is poured with cold water and sent to the stove. As soon as the liquid boils, the resulting foam is carefully removed from it and left to languish over the smallest fire. The fully cooked meat is carefully removed from the pan, cut into portions and returned to the broth along with large cubes of potatoes.
Now came the turn of vegetables. They are washed, if necessary, peeled and crushed. A little vegetable fat is poured into the preheated pan and the chopped onion is fried in it. Once it becomes transparent, grated carrots are added to it and mixed. After a couple of minutes, chopped tomatoes and tomato paste are sent to the roasting. After some time, grated beets sprinkled with sugar are spread in the same pan. All this is covered and stewed for seven minutes.
In the meantime, you can return to the broth. Shredded cabbage is thrown into it. Ten minutes later, green peas and chopped tops are poured into the same place. At the last stage, practically cooked borsch is seasoned with roasting and minced garlic, salted and brought to full readiness. Before serving to the dining table, hot fresh borsch with beet tops are insisted under the lid. Then it is poured into plates, sprinkled with herbs and seasoned with homemade sour cream.