Black Borscht with Seafood
Black borscht keeps the familiar cast — beet, cabbage, potato, garlic — but the color comes from a sachet of cuttlefish ink stirred into the hot broth after the brisket has been lifted out, not from the beets at all. Overnight in the fridge the murky gray evens out into a deep, glossy charcoal, which means this is not a soup you can make for tonight.
Underneath, it is ordinary borscht. A kilo of beef brisket (about 2¼ lb) simmers an hour and a half to two hours in 3 liters of water, roughly 12 cups; the beets are sautéed separately with sugar and vinegar, the onion and carrot with tomato paste. The ink barely alters the flavor — it lends a faint saline, sea-air note that the seared seafood on top picks up and carries. The sugar is not for sweetness but for balance, since beets range from bland to candy-sweet: add the spoonful, then taste.
Three things easy to get wrong
- Sear the seafood separately, fast and hot — left to sit in the soup it turns to rubber. A bag of frozen “seafood mix” (mussels, squid, shrimp) from the freezer aisle is exactly what is meant.
- Do not skip the vinegar with the beets; without it the sauté loses its color right in the pan.
- Dry your own croutons from white bread — packaged ones are usually too salty for this broth.
Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 464 more recipes in the section.
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Ingredients
Instructions
Cut up the meat, place it in a large pot, cover with 3 liters of water, and add the bay leaf. Bring to a boil, skim off the foam, and salt. Simmer the broth for 1.5-2 hours. At the end, lift the meat out of the pot and stir in the cuttlefish ink.
Grate the beets and sauté them in vegetable oil with the sugar and vinegar. Separately, in vegetable oil, sauté the chopped onion and grated carrot, add the tomato paste, and cook until the vegetables soften.
Drop the sliced potatoes and shredded cabbage into the boiling broth. When the potatoes are nearly done, add the onion and carrot, and at the very end the sautéed beets, finely chopped garlic, and thinly sliced meat. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Warm the borscht through, take it off the heat, and let it rest at least overnight so the ink gives it an even, glossy black color.
Sauté the seafood mix in vegetable oil and season with salt and pepper to taste.
Serve the borscht with the seafood mix, croutons, green onion, and sour cream.
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