Instructions

If borscht with chicken is cooked from a whole domestic chicken, it is ideal. To make a large pot of chicken borscht, one medium-sized carcass is enough — 1-1.2 kg.



It's better not to use chicken skin and chicken fat to make borscht in chicken broth. Wash the chicken carcass and take out the remaining feathers from the wings. Cut the chicken carcass into four parts, depending on how many portions of borscht you want to make. It is possible to cut the carcass into a larger number of parts, but this is not necessary.



Then, remove all visible fat from the chicken pieces and remove all the skin. The skin usually stays only on the wings. Take away the remains of the internal organs. Put the chicken pieces in a saucepan and add water to cover them.



Put the chicken pieces in a saucepan and add 2 liters of cold water. This amount of liquid (a little water will boil) is enough for a family of 4 people. Add a pinch of salt to the broth and bring it to a boil. Cook the broth over low heat so that it doesn't boil too much. When the broth barely boils, you need to try to keep it as warm as possible. The chicken should be cooked for 45 to 60 minutes. The broth will be transparent and rich.



The pieces of boiled chicken should be removed from the broth and transferred to a plate. Cover the plate with an inverted bowl to prevent the meat from drying out. Borscht with chicken will then be cooked in chicken broth.



The broth can be improved by adding a well-washed and unpeeled parsley root, 2-3 bay leaves, and a pinch of salt. If desired, you could add a piece of celery root and an entire sweet bell pepper, which, after boiling, could be pulled out and eaten separately. Add beans soaked the day before. You should take white beans, as they are not coloured in Borscht and are clearly visible. Cook over low heat until the beans are half cooked, then bring the broth to a boil. Throw away the parsley root and bay leaf – they have already played their role, flavouring the broth for borscht.



We usually add raw and unprepared vegetables to borscht when we cook it with meat at home. This has been the case historically. We will prepare vegetables by first frying them a little in this recipe. Peel all vegetables, including beets, carrots, onions, and garlic, before cooking.



You must fry vegetables, or sautéed them, as it is usually called. Furthermore, in my opinion, it is not entirely correct to refer to frying vegetables as sautéing. A sauté is used to achieve a more uniform mass, while whole pieces remain when fried. Sautéing is a short-term frying of vegetables in fat. This results in the colouring of fat with vegetables and the softening of vegetables. When frying, a barely noticeable reddish crust forms, and the vegetables remain entire.

Peel and wash the onion and carrot. Cut the onion into large strips, and the carrot into cubes – quite roughly. In a saucepan, heat 1 tbsp. l. vegetable oil. Many people will say that it is necessary to fry in lard, it is a matter of taste, probably for borscht with pork it is necessary. It is enough to fry vegetables in borscht with chicken in oil. At the same time, put the chopped onion and carrot in the heated fat and fry for 4–5 minutes, stirring often. As a result, the onion will begin to brown, and the carrot cubes will become soft and begin to fry.



Add the fried onions and carrots to the broth and stir to combine. The broth should be able to boil slowly. One clove of garlic should be trimmed, flattened, and added to the broth. Roasting for borscht is usually done on lard, lard or any pork fat. Moreover, all the vegetables are fried simultaneously, with grated tomato purée or tomato paste, and hot pepper. I noticed that there were bags of ready-made seasoning on sale – from the 'just dilute with dill' category.

Red beets need to be fried separately. Fry the chopped beets in 1 tbsp. l. of vegetable oil until the beets become soft and begin to brown a little. I believe it is critical. Add 2–3 spoons of the broth from the pan to the beets If the beetroot is not dark, to improve the colour of the borscht, a little vinegar or a pinch of citric acid is frequently added. I haven't seen this in a very long time, honestly. Now, the beetroot is almost black and complements perfectly the borscht without any extraneous additives.



Stew the beets with the liquid under the lid for 3–4 minutes on low heat. Add the prepared beets to the pan with the borscht and bring the liquid to a gentle boil.



Peel the potatoes and roughly cut them into 4–6 pieces. Potatoes are often added without cutting them, and when the dish is ready, they are crushed with a spoon directly into the borscht. After adding the vegetables, cook the borscht with chicken until the vegetables are almost fully cooked.



In a saucepan, mix tomato paste with 2–3 spoons of broth. Simmer the tomato paste for 2–3 minutes and add it to the pot with the borscht. If the potatoes are still noticeably raw, it is better to add the tomato paste a little later – potatoes do not cook well with tomatoes. At the same time as the paste, add 0.5 finely chopped pods of hot pepper, having previously cleaned it of seeds and internal partitions. The amount of hot pepper is to your taste. If you are afraid to over pepper, it is better to add just a pinch of chilli or coarsely ground dry red pepper.



After the tomato paste is added, the chicken borscht can be finally salted and peppered to taste. Fried and diluted flour is often added to the borscht at the final stage. This is done to increase the thickness of the borscht. But, given the large number of vegetables, this is hardly necessary.



Finely chop half of a small head of white cabbage (to make 2–4 cups of cabbage). Do not shred the inner, coarser parts of the cob. It is ideal if only the chopped top leaves get into the borscht on the chicken broth. Add shredded cabbage to the borscht, bring to a boil and cook over low heat with the lid on.



After the cabbage is added, cook the borscht for another 7–8 minutes. How many minutes you need to cook cabbage, see the notes to this recipe. If necessary, add salt – do not deny yourself, but remember – an oversalted dish is bad. A few minutes before it is ready, very commonly, borscht is seasoned with a chopped piece of old lard, mixed with salt and cloves of garlic. This is more suitable for borscht with meat, but who knows, you might like it. Subsequently, return the pieces of boiled chicken to the borscht and reduce the heat to a minimum.

But thereafter, borscht with chicken is not ready yet. He must rest – this is important. At least give it half an hour, or longer. As an option, you can insulate the pot with borscht by wrapping it in a woollen blanket and let it rest for 25–35 minutes.

Next comes the most significant stage — lunch or dinner. I don't know why, any borscht, including borscht with chicken, is served and served with extraordinary imagination and love.

Put a piece of chicken from the borscht on each plate, distribute evenly among the plates. By the way, the plates must be large; otherwise everyone will have to give a second portion.



Add a spoonful of sour cream to each plate, or to your taste. Finely chop the dill, adding a clove of garlic and red-hot pepper to it. And season the plates with the dish with this mixture.

Bon appétit!