cold borscht

On another day, I will give you my recipe for cold borscht from scratch. On this day, I'm going to show you how to take a jar of borscht from the supermarket shelf and make it taste fabulous.

What is borscht?

If you've wandered to this page randomly, rather than having actively sought out this recipe, and you don't come from a Jewish family that emigrated to the USA from Eastern Europe, you may not know what this funny sounding word means.

Cold borscht is a cold beet soup that makes a nice, refreshing summertime starter. Serve it with crusty bread and a hearty salad and you’ve got a lovely lunch or light supper. Or, for a really fun part of an hors d’oeuvres tray, serve it in clear shooter cups with a dollop of sour cream and a long sprig of dill, like a feathery green flag, artfully arranged.

Although borscht is a standard part of Russian, Polish, and Slavic cuisines, the recipe appears to have its origins in Ukraine. There are two styles—hot borscht and cold borscht—and they are not the same recipe served at different temperatures. Hot borscht is often a hearty meat soup. Cold borscht is a light and refreshing vegetarian soup, usually served in hot weather, when a hot soup just seems like too much. Here in Central Florida, that means any time.

What's great about this recipe is that, unlike making borscht from scratch, it takes only minutes to prepare. It requires four ingredients. My grandmother used five—she made it with the addition of a raw egg, which she said gave it body. While I can see where that may be true, using raw eggs is generally frowned upon these days. If you want to add a raw egg to this recipe, feel free to do so and look for pasturized eggs. Alternatively, some people float half a hard boiled egg in their borscht, for a heartier soup. For a borscht shooter, consider adding half a hard boiled quail egg.

What's vitally important here is the brand of borscht that you buy. I have tried other brands and they range from not-so-great to awful. You want to get Gold's Russian Style borscht. I don't recommend buying the sugar free version.

This will make 2 large servings, 3 to 4 smaller servings, or lots of shooters.

Ingredients:

1 jar Gold's Russian Style Borscht

2 tablespoons (more or less to taste) white sugar

2 tablespoons sour cream; plus more for serving

a few sprigs of fresh dill, plus more snips for serving

Optional: ½ hard boiled egg per serving

Method:

• Make sure your borscht is very cold. Refrigerate the jar for at least 6 hours. Or, pop the jar into the freezer, set the timer for 25 minutes, and then transfer it to the fridge until ready to use. Don't forget to take it out of the freezer. An exploded jar of frozen borscht is not a pretty thing.

• Combine the borscht with the sugar, sour cream, and dill in a blender or food processor and process until well combined. The little pieces of beet that are in the jarred borscht will add a bit of body to the blended finished product.

• To serve, choose bowls, cups, or shooter-type shot glasses. Top each portion with a dollop of sour cream in the middle, plus either a sprinkling of finely snipped fresh dill fronds or a little feathery sprig of dill.

  Always serve it very cold.

Did you make it? Was it fabulous?