Mom's Ukrainian Borscht :: Our Family Recipe

A few days ago I posted our family's favourite recipes... this one was missing but i found the time to add it along with some fun pictures i took of my lunch the other day!

Ok, here it is! My mom's ukrainian borscht recipe, which is a written recipe of my grandma milroy's unwritten recipe... her mom (my great grandma lytwyn) immigrated to Canada from near Lviv, Ukraine in 1910, when she was 15 years old!

Since moving to Poland (which neighbours Ukraine!) in 2002, i've served this Ukrainian Borscht to several Ukrainian friends who like it (or at leas that's what they tell me!) It's different from Polish Borscht - which is a clear broth. For me it's a comfort food, and strangely common in this foreign place. Enjoy!

Mom's Ukrainian Borscht

Ingredients:

• 3-4 medium size beets
• 5 cups water
• chicken bouillon cubes or packets (4-6) or chicken broth
• 1-2 medium onions - chopped
• potatoes, peeled & diced (3-4)
• carrots peeled & diced (2-3)
• V8 juice (or tomato juice) (1.36 L or 48 oz)
• 1/4 cup –1/2 cup fresh dill greens –chopped 
• 2 tsp salt
• 2 tbsp lemon juice or vinegar
• 1 small container whipping cream – 250 ml (don’t need to whip)
• 1- 2 cans Heinz Original Brown Beans in tomato sauce  14 fl oz /398 ml 
• Sour Cream for serving (optional)

Instructions:

1. Wash the beets, peel skin and then grate coarsely into the pot. 
2. (Alternatively - peel the beets, then boil in 5-6 cups of water, when they are cooked, take just the beets out, cool, then grate, and add back to pot)
3. Add the water 5-6 cups and the chicken flavouring or chicken stock .
4. Add the raw vegetables -- diced potatoes and the diced carrots
5. Start to heat the mixture - bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium/high
6. Add 2 tsp salt and 2 tbsp. lemon juice or vinegar
7. Cook until vegetables are almost done -- cooking time is probably around 15-20 minutes or until vegetables are soft
8. Add 2/3 - full container of V8 Juice -or tomato juice
9. Add the fresh chopped dill
10. Add 1-2 cans of the Heinz brown beans 
11. Bring the whole mixture back up to temperature
12. When the soup is almost done, put the whipping cream in a small frying pan and add the chopped onions 
13. Cook the onions in the cream until they are softened (the cream will become frothy and eventually thicken)
14. Add a few soup ladles of the hot soup into the whipped cream and onion mixture slowly and stir. (this is to prevent the mixture from totally curdling if added to the soup at once
15. Then you can slowly add the onions, cream and soup mixture into your large pot of soup.  This adds lots of flavour to the soup and makes it a bit creamy -- this is what my mom and aunt did (I know it seems odd!)

* After the soup is cooked and the vegetables are done it can be served with extra sour cream if desired.   

** Can be stored in the fridge and is good (even better!) on re-heating as well.