Cold Pickled Beet Borsch

for a hot summer day!

It’s the first week in August, 2007 in Marion, Ohio and it is hot. What better time for cold pickled beet soup with a sandwich.

Karen Lipman on findarticles.com taught us a good way to start by making a simple batch of beets.  She instructs that the beets can be enjoyed as pickles, or for a quick borscht, in a salad or in a relish. We will concentrate on making the pickled beets and the borscht, which we found to be easy and delightful to the taste.

Fresh Pickled Beets

Ingredients:

4 small diameter (about 2 ½ inches) beets (untrimmed about 1 ½ pounds)

1 ½ cups water

¼ cup red wine vinegar

2 tablespoons sugar

Instructions:

Trim tops and roots from beets (the leaves are good and useful, more on that later)

Peel beets (you can also used canned beets – no big revelation)

In a two quart sauce pan combine water, vinegar and sugar and bring to a boil.

Add beets, simmer covered for about 30 to 45 minutes or until tender. Turn beets often during the simmer.

Cool, cover and chill – the beets are good up to three days and yield about ¾ pounds of pickled beets.

Creamy Beet Borscht

Ingredients:

About 1 ½ pounds (a double batch of the Fresh Pickled Beets)

1 quart nonfat yogurt

1cup regular strength chicken broth

Pepper to taste

Dill for garnish

Additional yogurt for garnish

Instructions:

Drain beets and reserve 1 ½ cups juice

Combine beets, reserved juice, 1 quart of yogurt and broth.

In a food processor or blender make a smooth puree (using about 1/3 of the beet mixture at a time).

Chill and serve cold (cover and chill up to one day)

Garnish with chopped dill. Offer yogurt and pepper to taste. Serves 6 to 8.

This makes an excellent and quick refreshing soup.

However, it’s too hot to cook! So do this.

Use a jar or two of Aunt Nellie’s Whole or Sliced Pickled Beets which you have on the shelf for just this occasion. For a change of basic recipe this comes from culinary.net.

Easiest soup there is.

A recipe for Chilled Pickled Beet Borscht

Ingredients:

1 jar (16 ounces) Aunt Nellie’s Whole or Sliced Pickled Beets

1 cup water

½ cup shredded carrots (optional)

2 tablespoons lemonade concentrate

1 cup buttermilk

2 tablespoons chopped fresh dill

Salt and Pepper to taste

Sour cream and chopped cucumber for garnish (optional, but not really)

Instructions:

Drain beets and reserve liquid

Chop beets

Combine reserved liquid, water, beets, carrots, and lemonade concentrate in medium sauce pan. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, covered about 5 minutes to blend flavors and until carrots and tender.

Chill

Stir in buttermilk and dill, season with salt and pepper.

Keep chilled (up to a day) until ready to serve. Top servings with sour cream and chopped cucumber. Makes 4 servings 

Easy and Good! To tell the truth I liked Aunt Nellie's pickled beets out of a jar better than those I made. Maybe it's because I don't know much about the art of making pickles.

David