Borsch with meat and beet tops is a hot first course, which is usually cooked in spring and early summer, when beet tops are rampant in vegetable gardens. In our house such borshch appeared when grandmother thinned beets. The dish was prepared from the old and new harvest - last year's root vegetables were boiled in uniform in advance or baked in the oven, and the young tops were shredded and added at the very end along with boiled beets to retain a bright color. Beet contains the dye betaine. By the way, betaine owes its name to beetroot itself (from the Latin word beta). The substance is useful, I think, if you are interested, then there will be a great number of articles on its benefits.
The tongue does not turn to call soup a soup, well, what kind of soup is it, especially if it is cooked with meat. In fact, this is a whole dinner in one pot! I do not pretend to be a classic recipe, but I promise to be sure - it will turn out very tasty borscht, besides - beautiful, and it is prepared relatively quickly for such a dish.
- Cooking time: 1 hour 15 minutes
- Servings: 6
Ingredients for borsch with meat and beet tops
- 600 g pork tenderloin;
- 90 g onions;
- 120 g carrots;
- 100 g tomato sauce or 3 tomatoes;
- 250 g of potatoes;
- 150 g boiled beets;
- 100 g beet tops;
- pepper, bay leaf, vegetable oil, salt.
Method of cooking borscht with meat and beet tops
Meat for borscht cut into cubes and put in a pan in the heated vegetable oil (about 2-3 tablespoons). The pan is needed with a thick bottom or cast-iron, so that you can cook everything at once and not transfer it from the dish to the dish - so you can do without pre-frying in a frying pan.
Fry the pork for a few minutes until the pieces of meat are browned.
Add crushed onions to sliced pork. Fry onion with meat so that it becomes transparent and becomes caramel color.
At this stage of making borscht with meat and beetroot we add carrots cut into thin strips or grated on a large vegetable grater. Cooking carrots with meat and onions for 5-6 minutes on medium heat.
Add tomato sauce, stir, warm up for 5 minutes over medium heat. Instead of ready-made tomato sauce, you can grate 2-3 ripe tomatoes on a vegetable grater.
To the fried products pour 2 liters of boiling water, put a few leaves of laurel, black peppercorns. Cover the pan with a lid, cook for 40 minutes over low heat.
While the meat is being cooked, we cut potatoes into large straws.
Peeled boiled beets, rubbed on a vegetable grater. Beet tops chop finely with petioles.
After 40 minutes add the sliced potatoes to the pan, bring to the boil again, cook for 10-15 minutes.
For 5-7 minutes until borsch is ready with meat, salt it to taste and throw beets and tops into the pan. It is impossible to boil these ingredients for a long time - the red borsch will not work, the color will turn brown-orange, and the tops will disappear altogether.
Serve on the table with sour cream and fresh bread. By the way, with the tops you can make a very tasty tootvinyu - cold soup on sour kvass. But that's another story.
Borsch with meat and beet tops is ready. Enjoy your meal!
