There are dishes that never bother, and borsch with fresh cabbage is perhaps one of these. I do not argue that if you eat one borsch every day, then it will bother you, but in our family, if at least once a week it is not on the table, then something is missing.
Or when you are somewhere on vacation or a business trip for longer than two weeks, you will sometimes miss your native borscht and you only dream about how you get home, the first thing you cook is a pan.
At the same time, you can cook it on a rich broth, with meat, or you can just make vegetable borsch from fresh cabbage - so to speak, a very summer option, when the beet tops go into business.
Each housewife has her own recipe - the basis seems to be the same, but in the end it turns out differently for some - someone likes to put so many ingredients that the spoon is standing, and someone, on the contrary, prefers less starchy vegetables, but more cabbage , someone loves acidic, someone sweeter (then you need to take more beets). And if suddenly boiled (or canned) beans turn out to be at home, then be sure to add to our borsch, and the dish becomes only more satisfying.
So, we cook borsch with fresh cabbage - my recipe
For rich borsch, it is better to take meat on the brain bone or beef brisket and cook the broth. We do not cook broth in less than 5 liter pots. Even if it turns out a lot, you can always cast it and put the excess in the refrigerator to use later for something else. I recommend immediately after boiling, drain the first water, rinse the pan and again pour the meat with water about ¾ of its volume, and then cook until done (since the meat needs to be cooked for a long time over low heat, a certain amount of liquid will still evaporate, and the finished broth will be clean). After 2-2.5 hours, when the meat begins to move freely from the bones, the broth is ready. Remove the bones, strain, and cut the meat into pieces and either set aside for now, or again send it to the pan with strained broth. Yes, do not forget to salt the broth in the middle of the cooking process and add a whole peeled onion to improve the taste.
If you intend to use the entire broth only for borsch, then about forty-five minutes to the end of cooking, throw peeled potatoes into a medium-sized pot, which, when thoroughly boiled, will make the liquid more saturated.
Now you can deal directly with vegetables. The set of products in the borsch with fresh cabbage is standard - half a fork of fresh white cabbage, 3-4-5 potatoes, 2 carrots, 1-2 beets (all depending on size), medium onion (the one that was cooked in the broth, we don’t think it's easy remove from the prepared broth), fresh tomatoes - a couple of little things (or a full spoon of tomato paste), 1 pepper bell pepper (or we take a pinch of dried pepper, and we often use pepper from the “lecho” preparations, but this is in winter), garlic, allspice peas, bay leaf, salt.
Chop the fresh cabbage and put it aside, peel the potatoes and, cut into fairly large cubes, send to a boiling broth. After 15-20 minutes, when the potatoes are almost ready, put the cabbage in a saucepan and cook over medium heat until cooked.
While the cabbage is boiling, chop the onions finely, and carrots and beets with straws (or let the root vegetables through a coarse grater) and successively fry them in vegetable oil: first, onions until light golden in color, then add carrots to the same pan, a little later, beets and Bulgarian pepper (if slicing with a rather large straw, then the vegetables should be stewed a little more, adding a bit of broth), and in the end we add mashed fresh tomatoes (sprinkling them with boiling water first, so that you can easily remove the peel). If there are no fresh tomatoes, then add tomato paste (or you can have one and the other a little, if you like borscht acidic) and chopped garlic. Pepper the grill and lightly salt (this is indescribable yummy on its own).
When the cabbage is almost cooked, then add the whole frying to the pan, put the bay leaf and pepper with peas, bring everything to a small boil, reduce the heat and after 5-7 minutes our borsch will be ready. Leaving the pan for a little more to insist on the stove, cut while fresh greens (who loves what).
Pouring borsch with fresh cabbage into plates, add greens and sour cream to each serving. The scent is amazing!
Bon appetit to all!