Recipe Pistachio-Flavored Borsch/Borscht

Hemulen

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Pistachio-Flavored Borsch/Borscht
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Serves 6-8 | Preparation & Cooking time ~60 min

Ingredients / Broth
400 g (1/4 small head) white cabbage​
400 g (~3 pcs) potatoes​
60 g (~1 medium-sized) carrot​
1000 ml chicken stock/beef stock (2 cubes or home made)​
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Ingredients / Beef Mix
400 g (~420 ml) minced beef​
10 g (3/4 tablespoon) salted butter​
4 cloves of garlic​
2 heaped teaspoons paprika/bell pepper powder​
~1 teaspoon salt​
0,75 teaspoon black pepper​
0,5 teaspoon white pepper​
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Ingredients / Pistachio Mix
290 g (~450 ml) pickled onions​
290 g (~450 ml) pickled beets/beetroots​
50 g (~95 ml) shelled, unsalted pistachios​
300 ml/g almond milk (or half & half milk + cream)​
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The Rest of the Ingredients
30 g (~100 ml) fresh dill​
30 g (~100 ml) fresh parsley​
150 g/ml crème fraîche/sour cream​

Instructions

Heat up 1000 ml of chicken stock and set the range/burner/hob on low-medium heat. Remove one or two of the outer leaves, discard the hard stem and cut the cabbage into thin shreds. Peel the potatoes and carrot(s) and chop them into tiny bits. Put the vegetables in the broth and cook for 15-20 minutes.

Mince the garlic. Sauté the minced beef on a skillet/frying pan in butter on medium-high heat with the garlic, paprika powder, salt, black pepper and white pepper for a couple of minutes. Pour the contents into the soup and cook for a further 15-20 minutes.

Chop the dill and parsley. Drain the pickled onions and beetroots and put them in a mixer/blender with the pistachios and almond milk. Masticate into smooth pulp. Add the mixture, all of the parsley and half of the dill into the soup and cook for a further 10-15 minutes or until the cabbage is tender. Check the salt and pepper.

Garnish with the rest or the dill and serve with sour cream.
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I love the color. Your beets look redder than the ones I used. Mine turned out purple (see below). I really love how the earthiness of the root vegetable works with the meat to make it feel like a family recipe. I can see the earthiness of the pistachio will enhance the effect. I'm certainly going to try this, though probably with cubed beef again.
 
I love the color. Your beets look redder than the ones I used. Mine turned out purple (see below). I really love how the earthiness of the root vegetable works with the meat to make it feel like a family recipe. I can see the earthiness of the pistachio will enhance the effect. I'm certainly going to try this, though probably with cubed beef again.

The Late Night Gourmet, I checked your Borscht recipe: it looked delicious. I've had Borsch/-t made with cubed meat, minced meat, frankfurters/knackwursts/wieners and made from just vegetables and/or combined with (bell) peppers and/or Russian style lactic acid cured or pickled cucumbers. There isn't a fixed recipe for this dish with Eastern European/Slavic origin.

As for the color: there are beets of different color/hue (like Ruby Queen in the pic below). The pickled ones I used were "normal" purple ones - but two heaped teaspoons of paprika powder and the yellowish-green ground pistachios probably made the difference.
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Well you know, I've never made borsht so...

It is indeed a beautiful vibrant colour. I think the use of pickled beetroot and pickled onions is unusual in borsht? I'd be worried the pickled taste might eclipse the pistachio.
 
Well you know, I've never made borsht so...

It is indeed a beautiful vibrant colour. I think the use of pickled beetroot and pickled onions is unusual in borsht? I'd be worried the pickled taste might eclipse the pistachio.
Yes, an eclipse indeed. In this recipe, the pistachios don't taste much - they act mainly as a thickening agent. Mere dill and garlic take away the subtle "green/grassy hue" of pistachios. Most borscht recipes include a (generous) vinegar addition which I left out of this version made with pickled beetroots (left from Christmas) and onions. The soup tasted rather mild despite the amount of pickled vegetables and garlic. We added quite a lot of crème fraîche (my mom and stepdad came over for soup as well) and still didn't find the soup too acerbic. Everyone liked the plentiful amount of parsley and dill and the thickness owing to ground pistachios.
 
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