Borscht with Dried Mushrooms and Beans

Kateryna Bondar
Borscht with Dried Mushrooms and BeansBorscht with Dried Mushrooms and Beans
Cuisine
Course
Serves 6 people
Prep time
20m
Cook Time
2h 0m

Start this borscht the night before: the beans and the dried mushrooms both need several hours in cold water to swell. The mushrooms then hand a concentrated forest aroma to the broth, and the beans give the body that lets a single bowl stand in for lunch.

Don’t tip out the mushroom soaking water — that is where the flavor lives. Do strain it through cheesecloth, though: grit settles at the bottom almost every time, and rinsing the mushrooms themselves won’t fix it. Once cooked, rinse them again and shred them; left whole they chew long and scatter unevenly through the pot.

The finishing move is 50 g (about 2 oz) of salo mashed with garlic into a paste. Salo is cured pork fatback, closest in spirit to Italian lardo — if you can’t find it at a Slavic or Polish deli, unsmoked fatback or a piece of very fatty pancetta will do. It goes in at the end, off the heat, so the garlic keeps its bite while the fat melts through the broth in a velvety streak. Aged, air-dried salo is far more fragrant than fresh, so you need less of it.

Braise the beets and carrot separately in a ladle of broth and add them last; that is what keeps the soup deep red instead of washed-out pink. No dried mushrooms? Cremini work, with a gentler aroma and little of the woodsy edge. Rest the pot covered, then serve with sour cream, rye bread and garlicky pampushky rolls.

Part of Ukrainian cuisine — 447 more recipes in the section.

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Ingredients

  • 500 Grams
    meat (pork, beef, or chicken)
  • 1
    beet
  • 1
    carrot
  • 5-7
    dried mushrooms (can substitute button mushrooms)
  • 3 Tablespoons
    dried beans
  • 1
    bell pepper
  • 50 Grams
    salo (preferably aged)
  • 2-3 Pieces
    garlic cloves
  • 1
    onion
  • potatoes
  • cabbage
  • parsley and celery root
  • sour cream for serving
  • salt, seasonings, and herbs to taste

Instructions

  1. Cover the beans and dried mushrooms with cold water and soak for several hours until they swell.

  2. Cook the meat until done and reserve the broth.

  3. Cut the beet into thin strips and the carrot into rounds, pour in some of the broth, and braise for about an hour over low heat.

  4. In a separate pot of broth, cook the shredded mushrooms and beans until half-done with salt and spices, then add the diced potatoes and cabbage.

  5. After ten minutes, add the onion, bell pepper, and celery and parsley root, and cook until the vegetables are tender.

  6. Add the braised beet and carrot to the borscht. Mash the salo with garlic into a paste and stir it into the soup at the end of cooking.

  7. Let the borscht rest, covered, and serve with sour cream and fresh herbs.

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